Cave saves some from horrors of the Holocaust

Every now and then, long after the end of World War II, heroic stories of those who survived emerge. This summer's issue of National Geographic Adventure magazine contains one of those, told by brave people who were found in a most unlikely way. Almost 50 years after they emerged, caver Chris Nicola discovered the hiding place of 38 Jews who escaped the Holocaust by living below ground in caves in Ukraine for nearly two years. Ten years later, after an extensive search, he located six of the cave survivors. Nicola and some of the survivors were invited to share their stories on "Today." Here's more from National Geographic Adventure:

The Darkest Days
In the spring of 1944, a group of 38 Ukrainian Jews emerged weak and jaundiced from a cave they'd used for nearly a year to escape the horrors of the Holocaust. Nearly fifty years later, one caver began his quest to bring their story of survival to life.

In 1993, veteran caver Chris Nicola became one of the first Americans to explore Ukraine's famous Gypsum Giant cave systems. While there, during an expedition into the tenth longest cave in the world, his team came across two partially intact stone walls and other signs of habitation. Local residents, who revere the Gypsum Giants as national treasures, told Nicola that a group of Ukrainian Jews spent months in the cave evading the horrors of the Holocaust. No one seemed to know who had survived, however, and some questioned whether any had seen daylight again. Fascinated, Nicola grew determined to learn how people with no prior caving experience or specialized equipment were able to live in such a hostile environment for so long.

Ten years later, after an extensive search, Nicola located six of the cave survivors, most of them members of the extended Stermer family. The story they told was even more remarkable than the legend Nicola had heard while in the Ukraine, involving not one cave hideout, but two, and nearly two years spent underground. "There may not be another story like this," explains Michlean Amir, reference archivist of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. "Such a large group of people avoided digging their own graves or being shipped off to concentration camps by successfully utilizing a natural phenomenon."

Last July, Nicola and writer-photographer Peter Lane Taylor traveled 7,000 miles to western Ukraine on assignment for Adventure to learn how the group, which numbered 38 in all, was able to survive below ground for nearly two years. Their first stop was Verteba, a well-known tourist cave where the families spent their first six months. There, the Jews struggled to find enough water and suffered from the toxic buildup of smoke from their cooking fire. Then on May 5, 1943, after narrowly avoiding capture at the hands of the Gestapo, the families relocated to a previously unexplored cave located beneath land owned by a local parish priest. It was called Popowa Yama, or Priest's Grotto, and it would be the Jews refuge from the Holocaust for the next 344 days.

By piecing together interviews with the survivors and artifacts they found while in Ukraine, Nicola and Taylor were able to develop a clear picture of the Jews underground life. The fruits of their findings appear in this month's issue. Here are two of the questions Adventure asks Nicola about uncovering this forgotten story of courage, loyalty, and survival:

We have all heard extraordinary Holocaust survival stories, what about this story makes it so unique?
It was the sheer magnitude of their survival and how they survived together. In my opinion, the western Ukraine was the worst place on Earth for Jews to live during World War II. Hitler was on one border sending in troops whose sole purpose was to eliminate all Jews, and Stalin was on the other enforcing a scorched earth policy by burning everything that couldn't be moved. The chance of a Jewish person surviving at all was less than five percent. But what made this story different, and what is rarely seen in any Holocaust survival story, is how these families stayed virtually intact.
How did you get in touch with the survivors?
After ten years of extensive research and a lot of dead ends, I came across a number of sophisticated Internet search sites for the Jewish community, used by thousands of Jews to look for missing relatives. I thought if I put the right words on my own Web site (www.uaycef.org) —such as "cave" and "grotto" — then someone searching would pick up on them. Sure enough, in 2002, I got an e-mail late at night and couldn't believe my eyes. It was a message from the son-in-law of Sol Wexler. He said his father-in-law survived the Holocaust by hiding in a cave. I was so excited — I was afraid to even touch the print key in case I were to accidentally erase it. I calmed down, responded, and got to meet Sol Wexler. He eventually led me to the others.

Excerpted by permission from National Geographic Adventure magazine. To read more of this Q&A with Chris Nicola, you can visit: http://www.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/0406/q_n_a.html
To read an excerpt of the article, you can visit: http://www.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/0406/excerpt4.html or pick up the June/July issue of National Geographic Adventure.

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