The secret of Priest's Grotto

Two explorers survey caves in the Western Ukraine and relate the story of how an extended Jewish family, fleeing persecution by the Nazis, lived for two years in a large cave, Popowa Yama, and survived the war. ; An account by two American cave explorers of an expedition they conducted in July 2003 to the giant cave Popova Yama (literally Priest's Pit, today called Ozerna), situated near the town of Korolivka, Ternopil region, Ukraine. When Nicola was there in 1993, he heard rumors about Jews who survived in the caves during the Holocaust. In 2002, one of the survivors, Sol Wexler, contacted Nicola via his website. After interviewing him, the authors were then put in contact with the Stermer family in Montreal. It was the Stermers (parents and six children) who initiated the idea of hiding in the massive caves during the German occupation. Their family and some relatives, along with 26 other Jews (38 people in all) hid in the caves of Verteba (from October 1942 to April 1943) and Popova Yama (from May 1943 to April 1944). After the war, the survivors settled in the USA, Canada, and Israel; fourteen are still alive today. The story of their survival is interspersed with the account of the expedition, which was intended to search for remains of their ordeal (which, in fact, were found and are being preserved in the caves), and to investigate how they could have lived underground so long, while cavers today need special equipment to survive. The book includes numerous photographs of the place and the persons involved. (From the Bibliography of the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism - The Hebrew University of Jerusalem)