Years in damp darkness

New York Daily News ^ | June 1, 2004 | By CORKY SIEMASZKO

[sakic]

Jews hid in cave and survived

On a moonless October night in 1942, a desperate group of Jews fled the village of Korolowka, Poland, and literally went underground to escape the Nazis. While World War II raged above them, they hid from the Holocaust in two vast caves 50 feet beneath the rolling wheat fields of what is now western Ukraine.

For about two years, dozens of them lived in almost total darkness, cooking by kerosene light. When the men ventured out for food and firewood, it was only at night.

Like hibernating bears, they slept for 22-hour stretches. They lived on thin barley or potato soup. They kept sane byretelling biblical tales of King David and Ruth, by reciting Polish poetry and Ukrainian folk tales.

"We also talked a lot about food," said Sol Wexler, a 74-year-old Bronx grandfather, who Americanized his last name from Weichselblatt. "I would dream about eating a raw potato."

And they survived.

"I saw the sun April 12, 1944," said Shunkale Hochman, 70, now a grandmother of three living on Long Island. "There was still snow on the ground, and I was blinded by it. After being in the darkness for so long, it was very frightening to go out."

Their amazing tale remained buried for nearly 60 years until an intrepid cave explorer from Queens named Chris Nicola stumbled upon the story in the two hideouts - known as Verteba and the Priest's Grotto - and tracked down the survivors.

Their story appears in this month's issue of National Geographic Adventure magazine (www.nationalgeographic.com/adventure) and stands as a testament to the Stermer, Dodyk, Weichselblatt and other cave families - and their will to live.

"It was time," said Hochman, whose maiden name was Dodyk and who was 9 when she went underground. "We wanted to survive and tell the story to the world. In the cave, we thought we were the only survivors because they were killing everyone above."

Nicola said it's a human triumph as well.

"Until now, the longest recorded time that a human survived underground was 205 days," he said. "The women and children hiding in the Priest's Grotto didn't leave for344 days straight. That is amazing."

Before it became a killing ground, Korolowka was part of Poland. Most of the people who lived there in 1939 were Ukrainian peasants or Jews.

When Nicola, an investigator at the state Education Department's Office of Professional Discipline, started exploring the vast underground labyrinths, the Ukrainians were still in the area, but the Jews were ghosts.

They lived on in the stories of the peasants, who spoke of the Jews who hid in the gypsum caves and emerged after the war - covered in yellow mud.

On his first forays into the Priest's Grotto in 1995, Nicola saw campsites and other signs of human habitation. He began to wonder whether the stories were true.

"They did not look like the campsites of cavers who go down for a day," Nicola said. "So it became for me a quest."

Nicola searched libraries and scoured the Internet for information about the Korolowka Jews. Then two years ago, he found Wexler's son-in-law Ed Vogel, and the Jewish ghosts came back to life.

Guided by the survivors' memories, Nicola explored their first hideout, the Verteba cave, and returned to the Priest's Grotto, where they spent much of the war.

There Nicola found proof of their past existence - tin cups, rotting shoes, a 150-pound millstone they hefted through the darkness, their names written in charcoal on the walls like prehistoric cave dwellers.

It was Esther Stermer, the matriarch of one of Korolowka's leading families, who led the Jews to safety, Nicola said.

"We are not going to the slaughterhouse," Stermer said after the Nazis ordered all the Jews to the town square.

Instead, the families gathered up supplies they had been hoarding and descended into the Verteba cave. But it was not much of a refuge. Poorly ventilated and full of bats, it was also known to the Ukrainians, some of whom were helping the Nazis.

Six months later, the Germans raided the cave. Most of the Jews fled through an escape hatch. But Wexler's mother and 9-year-old brother were caught and executed.

That winter, the Jewish escapees hid in a bunker behind a barn. When spring came, they had to run again.

Stermer's oldest son, Nissel, sought out a Ukrainian he could trust, a forester named Munko Lubudzin. He led them to a sinkhole in a field where peasants left dead livestock torot.

The sinkhole contained a portal to one of the world's biggest caves, a pitch-black sanctuary where the temperature was a damp but constant 50 degrees. It was the salvation for the 38 Jews who found their way inside.

Hochman said she was never afraid in the cave, and whenever she feels anxious, she sits quietly in a darkened room. Wexler, however, said he remains haunted by the ordeal.

"I try to sleep it off," he said. "It works sometimes. You don't feel nothing when you sleep."

[sakic]

El Bumpo

[sakic]

bumperino?

[Jeremiah Jr]

We may all be hidding in a cave soon!

[sakic]

Nah. That's for Osama and friends.

[sakic]

Last bumpo grande for now

[Nonstatist]

where the temperature was a damp but constant 50 degrees

It's amazing how constant the temperature is in those subterenean caves.Same temp all year long, although the darkness can be amazingly stark. The blackest black.

[Johnny Gage]

Polish WWII ping.

[SAMWolf]

Thanks Johnny.

[Solamente]

I wouldn't mind it a bit, so long as could bring my computer and internet connection!

[blowfish]

Oh, this isn't an article about living in Seattle?

[Lurking Libertarian]

Thanks for posting this. The world must never forget.

[Dr. Scarpetta]

Six months later, the Germans raided the cave. Most of the Jews fled through an escape hatch. But Wexler's mother and 9-year-old brother were caught and executed.

A reminder of what we're up against.

[cricket]

"A reminder of what we're up against." It is the Liberal Jewish establishment that needs a reminder; they seem unable to connect the dots.

[snippy_about_it]

Bump.

[sakic]

It's a story I had never heard before. Going to see if the whole story is online at National Geographic. If not, I'll go buy it.

[struwwelpeter]

Last month I was watching Pianist (or whatever the title of the movie was in English), about Vladimir Spielmann hiding out in Warsaw during the war. I thought it was very interesting and felt for the protaganist's ordeals.

My Ukrainian girlfriend had a different take on it, however - she wanted to know why he couldn't pick up a rifle or a Molotov cocktail. I said that it was because he was a musician and that it would have been a shame to lose such talent.

"All that 'ping ping ping' doesn't mean anything when the fascists take over," she replied. "Twelve year-old Ukrainian girls could shoot Germans, why not 30 year-old Jewish men?"

She claims that Hitler and Stalin killed off twice as many Ukrainians as Jews, but no one makes movies about them. Food for thought.