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| No Place On Earth – Photo Credit TIFF Film Library |
March 6 2013 – Today we review a movie that played at Toronto’s Human Rights Watch Film Festival 2013.
Before . . . their decent in the darkness of Western Ukraine’s Verteba cave.
Before . . . their scheduled departure to Canada on September 8th 1939.
Before . . . the start of WWII on September 1st , 1939.
Before . . . the sale of their land, houses, and all their worldly possessions.
Before . . . their examinations, document preparation and interviews with the Canadian counsel as a precursor to departure.
Before . . .the notice in the Warsaw newspaper that Canada was accepting Jewish farmers.
The Stermer, Wexler and Dodyk families were living comfortably in the predominantly Jewish town of Korolowka, Ukraine. It won’t last.
No Place on Earth is the story of how 5 extended Jewish families, 38 people in all, survived the pursuing Nazis for 18 months by hiding in the caves of Western Ukrainian.
In 1993 while exploring the Ukrainian Gypsum caves, American cave enthusiast Chris Nicola unearthed signs of humanity within its labyrinth. Buttons, shoes, keys, crude cooking instruments were all objects of lives lived in secret far away for the hell that was WWII. This became Nicola’s 9 year journey towards discovery as the walls of the Priest Grotto and Verteba cave slowly revealed to him a harrowing tale of survival.
The diarized writings of Esther Stermer comes flooding back to life as Director, Janet Tobias methodically bridges this living history with chronicles from Saul and Sam Stermer, and Sonia and Sima Dodyk as they take you through their struggles during the dead of winter, in darkness and despair. In the end, Chris Nicola’s return to his motherland to reconnect with his roots started an odyssey that brought to the world through his dogged investigation, the survival of 38 people whose progeny in Canada and the United States can now bear witness to their triumph. This story of the longest uninterrupted underground survival in recorded human history serves as a testament to the human spirit. No Place on Earth has succeeded in finding thé place on earth to telling the survivors stories of a lifetime.
Verdict: 4 / 5
No Place on Earth
Dir.: Janet Tobias
USA / UK / Germany
2012 / 81 minutes / PG
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