Into Utter Darkness
In July 2003, American caver Chris Nicola and I stood on the edge of a sinkhole called Priest's Grotto on the endless wheat fields of Ukraine. At the surface, the grotto is just a weedy depression in the ground, yet below is a gigantic labyrinth, a cave cut by water into a stratum of gypsum, spreading out like cracks in a shattered windshield for 77 miles.
Nicola has been here before and became fascinated by the cave and its legend. Local lore told of a small band of Jewish families who had hidden from the Nazis here, beneath the cold, dark earth, for almost a year. The evidence, Nicola tells me, is found inside.
Modern cavers require special clothing, advanced lighting technology and intensive instruction in navigation to survive underground for just a few days. How did 38 untrained, ill-equipped men, women and children survive so long in such a hostile environment？ That's what we've come here to discover.
We climb down two dozen metal rungs, installed by cavers, into utter darkness. A rush of wind across the steppe is the last sound I hear before the metal entrance door clanks closed.
The night of October 12, 1942, Zaida Stermer, his wife, Esther, and their six children dug up possessions hidden behind their house, loaded wagons with food and fuel, and quietly fled into the darkness. Traveling with them were their relatives the Dodyks and other neighbors from the village of Korolówka.
They were going to a cavern near Esther's family home. There they lived for six months, until they were discovered by the Gestapo —— and only narrowly escaped. For the next two months, they moved from place to place, hiding in the forests and in barns, searching for a permanent refuge.
In desperation, the Stermers' eldest son, Nissel, went to a Christian friend, Munko Lubudzin, a forester who lived in the woods near Korolówka, and asked for help. Munko told Nissel about Priest's Grotto, a sinkhole a few miles outside of town —— so called because it was located in the fields of a local priest. Farmers used the desolate place to dispose of dead livestock.
Nissel and his brother Shulim left at first light on May 1, 1943, along with their friend Karl Kurtz and two of the Dodyk brothers. They raced through the fields north of town to the edge of the sinkhole. The men descended using an old rope, then clambered down the last 20 feet on a makeshift ladder. At the bottom, mud came up to their knees, and the stench of the rotting livestock made the men gag, but they could see an opening about the size of a fireplace.
Nissel was first to squeeze through. Inside, it was completely black, but by the dim light of candles, the men saw they were in a small room surrounded by boulders. It was only the first room of a labyrinth of chambers.
Seventy-five feet farther on, they crawled into a section so large that their candles could not light it all. The rock curved down to the floor like the canopy of a covered wagon.
They pulled out a coil of rope, tied one end to a boulder, and began searching the network of passages for a suitable place to build a camp.
Three hours later, disoriented and fatigued, Shulim dragged his foot and dislodged a stone —— it rolled downhill and splashed into a clear underground lake. The men laughed for the first time in months： They had found the water source they needed for survival.
Four days later, on May 5, the Stermers, the Dodyks, and various other relatives and friends, including Karl Kurtz —— 38 in all —— packed up supplies and fled to the Grotto. The oldest was a 75-year-old grandmother, and the youngest a toddler. In silence, they descended the sinkhole one by one. It was the last time many of them would see the sky for nearly a year.
Our caving team reaches our first underground camp 400 yards from the entrance. A quarter-mile is a considerable distance, I discover, when you're dragging supplies on your hands and knees through mud and tortuous low passageways.
We make camp and settle in. But after our first night underground, I feel a sense of suspended reality. Everything seems to happen in slow motion. Direction is lost. Passages propagate in all directions. Our route switches 16 times before we find the rooms where the Jews lived.
The families' initial relief was soon overshadowed by the question of how to survive. They found a chamber for their cooking fire, isolated their water sources, and constructed wooden beds in another part of the cave.
The four main rooms where they lived were approximately 8 feet wide by 80 feet long, and linked to the others by a network of narrow, body-width tunnels at either end.
Re-establishing their aboveground supply lines was their next priority. They had only enough kerosene, flour and other goods to last two weeks.
In spite of the danger, the three Stermer brothers —— Nissel, Shulim and Shlomo —— and several other young men climbed out of the cave and scattered into the woods. Working frantically, in almost total darkness, they cut down 20 large trees. Half the men chopped off the branches and cut the trunks into five-foot lengths, while the others lugged the logs back to the cave.
In July 2003, American caver Chris Nicola and I stood on the edge of a sinkhole called Priest's Grotto on the endless wheat fields of Ukraine. At the surface, the grotto is just a weedy depression in the ground, yet below is a gigantic labyrinth, a cave cut by water into a stratum of gypsum, spreading out like cracks in a shattered windshield for 77 miles.
Nicola has been here before and became fascinated by the cave and its legend. Local lore told of a small band of Jewish families who had hidden from the Nazis here, beneath the cold, dark earth, for almost a year. The evidence, Nicola tells me, is found inside.
Modern cavers require special clothing, advanced lighting technology and intensive instruction in navigation to survive underground for just a few days. How did 38 untrained, ill-equipped men, women and children survive so long in such a hostile environment？ That's what we've come here to discover.
We climb down two dozen metal rungs, installed by cavers, into utter darkness. A rush of wind across the steppe is the last sound I hear before the metal entrance door clanks closed.
The night of October 12, 1942, Zaida Stermer, his wife, Esther, and their six children dug up possessions hidden behind their house, loaded wagons with food and fuel, and quietly fled into the darkness. Traveling with them were their relatives the Dodyks and other neighbors from the village of Korolówka.
They were going to a cavern near Esther's family home. There they lived for six months, until they were discovered by the Gestapo —— and only narrowly escaped. For the next two months, they moved from place to place, hiding in the forests and in barns, searching for a permanent refuge.
In desperation, the Stermers' eldest son, Nissel, went to a Christian friend, Munko Lubudzin, a forester who lived in the woods near Korolówka, and asked for help. Munko told Nissel about Priest's Grotto, a sinkhole a few miles outside of town —— so called because it was located in the fields of a local priest. Farmers used the desolate place to dispose of dead livestock.
Nissel and his brother Shulim left at first light on May 1, 1943, along with their friend Karl Kurtz and two of the Dodyk brothers. They raced through the fields north of town to the edge of the sinkhole. The men descended using an old rope, then clambered down the last 20 feet on a makeshift ladder. At the bottom, mud came up to their knees, and the stench of the rotting livestock made the men gag, but they could see an opening about the size of a fireplace.
Nissel was first to squeeze through. Inside, it was completely black, but by the dim light of candles, the men saw they were in a small room surrounded by boulders. It was only the first room of a labyrinth of chambers.
Seventy-five feet farther on, they crawled into a section so large that their candles could not light it all. The rock curved down to the floor like the canopy of a covered wagon.
They pulled out a coil of rope, tied one end to a boulder, and began searching the network of passages for a suitable place to build a camp.
Three hours later, disoriented and fatigued, Shulim dragged his foot and dislodged a stone —— it rolled downhill and splashed into a clear underground lake. The men laughed for the first time in months： They had found the water source they needed for survival.
Four days later, on May 5, the Stermers, the Dodyks, and various other relatives and friends, including Karl Kurtz —— 38 in all —— packed up supplies and fled to the Grotto. The oldest was a 75-year-old grandmother, and the youngest a toddler. In silence, they descended the sinkhole one by one. It was the last time many of them would see the sky for nearly a year.
Our caving team reaches our first underground camp 400 yards from the entrance. A quarter-mile is a considerable distance, I discover, when you're dragging supplies on your hands and knees through mud and tortuous low passageways.
We make camp and settle in. But after our first night underground, I feel a sense of suspended reality. Everything seems to happen in slow motion. Direction is lost. Passages propagate in all directions. Our route switches 16 times before we find the rooms where the Jews lived.
The families' initial relief was soon overshadowed by the question of how to survive. They found a chamber for their cooking fire, isolated their water sources, and constructed wooden beds in another part of the cave.
The four main rooms where they lived were approximately 8 feet wide by 80 feet long, and linked to the others by a network of narrow, body-width tunnels at either end.
Re-establishing their aboveground supply lines was their next priority. They had only enough kerosene, flour and other goods to last two weeks.
In spite of the danger, the three Stermer brothers —— Nissel, Shulim and Shlomo —— and several other young men climbed out of the cave and scattered into the woods. Working frantically, in almost total darkness, they cut down 20 large trees. Half the men chopped off the branches and cut the trunks into five-foot lengths, while the others lugged the logs back to the cave.