A Constant Battle
On November 10, 1943, the older Stermer men went to see another Christian friend, who, like Munko, sold them fuel and food —— 250 pounds of desperately needed grain, which he helped them transport in his wagon to the forest near Priest's Grotto.
When Nissel and Shulim reached the edge of the sinkhole, they slipped down the entrance shaft and began lugging the sacks into the cave. But just then, the Ukrainian police arrived and fired a barrage of bullets into the cave's opening. The men dived for cover behind boulders.
After that initial round, however, the gunfire stopped. Apparently, local peasants told the police the Jews were armed and had many secret exits. The police left and never came back.
Snows began to fall, leaving no trace of the cave. Underground, with enough food and fuel for more than two months, the men moved a massive boulder in front of the entry shaft and barricaded it with logs.
Safe from bullets, the families now faced another danger. After seven months beneath the surface, the Jews' meager diet of grain and soup lacked protein, calcium, and crucial vitamins, making them vulnerable to jaundice and scurvy. They dwindled to two-thirds their normal weight. As the winter turned to spring, they again met aboveground with their friend Munko, who told the Stermer men that there were bright orange explosions over the eastern hills at night. The Nazis were retreating.
One morning in early April, Shlomo found a small bottle at the bottom of the entrance shaft. The message inside read simply： “The Germans are already gone.” For ten more days, the Jews waited for the chaos to subside. Then, on April 12, 1944, they stashed their tools and supplies deep inside the cave, and climbed out of Priest's Grotto.
Heavy snow had fallen and ice-cold water flowed into the shaft from above. Covered with bone-chilling mud, the Jews scaled the steep banks of the sinkhole. Their faces were jaundiced and drawn, their clothes tattered. They were caked with thick yellow mud. Yet they were filled with joy as they stood in the sunshine for the first time in 344 days.
But the world into which they emerged was completely changed. The town of Korolówka had been devastated. Of the half million Jews who lived in the region in 1941, only a few thousand survived the war.
The Stermers abandoned Ukraine forever in June 1945, moving to a displaced-persons camp in Fehrnwald, Germany. In 1947 they sailed for Canada and the United States.
After only three days in Priest's Grotto, I cannot imagine how those 38 men, women and children endured the cold, darkness and mind-warping nothingness. Kenneth Kamler, MD, author of Surviving the Extremes, believes the combination of stress and sensory deprivation the families endured is almost without parallel. “Their experience was analogous to long-duration space flight.”
But endure they did. And 60 years after their ordeal, I am sitting in the afternoon light in the Stermers' living room in Montreal, as Shulim, 84, Shlomo, 74, Yetta, 78, and a niece tell me the story recounted here.
Theirs was a constant battle. Many people would have simply given up. Only love of family, strict discipline and gritty determination kept them going.
“When we get together now,” Shulim says, “I know the fight to survive was worth it. I am most sure when I see my grandchildren.”
On November 10, 1943, the older Stermer men went to see another Christian friend, who, like Munko, sold them fuel and food —— 250 pounds of desperately needed grain, which he helped them transport in his wagon to the forest near Priest's Grotto.
When Nissel and Shulim reached the edge of the sinkhole, they slipped down the entrance shaft and began lugging the sacks into the cave. But just then, the Ukrainian police arrived and fired a barrage of bullets into the cave's opening. The men dived for cover behind boulders.
After that initial round, however, the gunfire stopped. Apparently, local peasants told the police the Jews were armed and had many secret exits. The police left and never came back.
Snows began to fall, leaving no trace of the cave. Underground, with enough food and fuel for more than two months, the men moved a massive boulder in front of the entry shaft and barricaded it with logs.
Safe from bullets, the families now faced another danger. After seven months beneath the surface, the Jews' meager diet of grain and soup lacked protein, calcium, and crucial vitamins, making them vulnerable to jaundice and scurvy. They dwindled to two-thirds their normal weight. As the winter turned to spring, they again met aboveground with their friend Munko, who told the Stermer men that there were bright orange explosions over the eastern hills at night. The Nazis were retreating.
One morning in early April, Shlomo found a small bottle at the bottom of the entrance shaft. The message inside read simply： “The Germans are already gone.” For ten more days, the Jews waited for the chaos to subside. Then, on April 12, 1944, they stashed their tools and supplies deep inside the cave, and climbed out of Priest's Grotto.
Heavy snow had fallen and ice-cold water flowed into the shaft from above. Covered with bone-chilling mud, the Jews scaled the steep banks of the sinkhole. Their faces were jaundiced and drawn, their clothes tattered. They were caked with thick yellow mud. Yet they were filled with joy as they stood in the sunshine for the first time in 344 days.
But the world into which they emerged was completely changed. The town of Korolówka had been devastated. Of the half million Jews who lived in the region in 1941, only a few thousand survived the war.
The Stermers abandoned Ukraine forever in June 1945, moving to a displaced-persons camp in Fehrnwald, Germany. In 1947 they sailed for Canada and the United States.
After only three days in Priest's Grotto, I cannot imagine how those 38 men, women and children endured the cold, darkness and mind-warping nothingness. Kenneth Kamler, MD, author of Surviving the Extremes, believes the combination of stress and sensory deprivation the families endured is almost without parallel. “Their experience was analogous to long-duration space flight.”
But endure they did. And 60 years after their ordeal, I am sitting in the afternoon light in the Stermers' living room in Montreal, as Shulim, 84, Shlomo, 74, Yetta, 78, and a niece tell me the story recounted here.
Theirs was a constant battle. Many people would have simply given up. Only love of family, strict discipline and gritty determination kept them going.
“When we get together now,” Shulim says, “I know the fight to survive was worth it. I am most sure when I see my grandchildren.”