Jewish family Escaped Holocaust Hiding in Underground Cave

de bene esse: literally, of well-being, morally acceptable but subject to future validation or exception

• Esther and Zaida Stermer and their six children lived underground to survive
• They were among six Jewish families who avoided being sent to their deaths
• Their astonishing story will be told in new documentary No Place On Earth

A Jewish matriarch was so determined to protect her family from Nazi persecution, she hid herself and them in an underground cave until their country was liberated - eighteen months later. Esther Stermer lived a peaceful, rural existence in a small Ukrainian village with her six children until the Germans invaded in late 1941.
Hellbent on annihilating the Jewish people, the soldiers rounded up more than a thousand Jews and sent them to their deaths.

Several Jewish families escaped the Holocaust thanks to the courage of Esther Stermer, front row, second from left

Mrs Stermer and her husband Zaida were determined their innocent family would survive. She and five other Jewish families from the area packed their belongings one cold October night in 1942 and fled, in the dark, to a sinkhole masking the entrance to an underground cave, five miles north of their home in Korolowka.

A new documentary, No Place On Earth, tells the story of Mrs Stermer's courage more than 70 years ago.

She and her family had already survived one year of German occupation, but knew that the shadow of death was creeping ever closer.

Her son Sam Stermer, now 86, told ABC News that the family's secret was their utter determination never to give in. The cave they settled in was pitch black, damp, and lay beneath the ground that Nazi soldiers would march over, deep in the Ukrainian countryside.

The six families, 38 people in total, hid there for 18 months, until it was safe to go above ground in their own land again. During that time, the families lived in complete darkness, digging out toilets and showers and more living space as they concentrated on surviving until they could come out again.

 

At night they foraged for food and in the day, hid deep in the darkness.
Mr Stermer's older brother Saul Stermer, now 92, said: 'You went to sleep and you had a pillow and you covered up with good blankets - what else you want?'

What the family prized above all else was their freedom - they had escaped the invading forces and would do so for more than 500 days. During that time, Esther Stermer defended her family once, when German SS soldiers raided the first cave.

Coming face-to-face with the men they had lived in fear of for so long, Mrs Stermer held her ground, despite the fact they were pointing guns at her. Sam Stermer said: 'And she says "What are you afraid of here? The Fuhrer is gonna lose the war because we live here?"'

The soldiers left, never to return, and finally in April 1944, the Russians liberated the area and the hidden families climbed out of the cave and into the light.

 

Last year the Stermer brothers returned to the cave for the first time for the film. They told how after the war  they travelled to Canada and set up a business which they still run there.

Today the survivors and offspring of those who hid in the Ukrainian caves number more than 125,and the film, which will be on limited release in the U.S. and released in Germany, tells the story of their courage.

Their survival is the longest uninterrupted underground survival in recorded human history.