500 Days in Darkness: The Long-Buried Story of Priest’s Grotto, a Holocaust Refuge in One of the World’s Longest Caves

In the rolling landscape of western Ukraine, near the village of Strilkivtsi, lies a vast gypsum cave called Priest’s Grotto—known locally as Ozerna, or “Blue Lakes Cave.” It stretches over 140 kilometers, making it one of the longest cave systems in the world. With only a single entrance and passages winding deep beneath the surface, the cave isn’t easy to reach or navigate.

Discovered in 1940, Priest’s Grotto is part of a massive network of underground tunnels carved through soft gypsum rock over thousands of years. But it isn’t just geologically interesting—it’s historically significant too, though that only came to light recently.

During the World War II, this hidden and difficult-to-access cave became a hiding place for Jewish families fleeing the Nazi occupation. For more than 500 days, 38 people—from infants to elderly grandparents—lived entirely underground, far from sunlight, safety, and any certainty about what the future held.

These families first tried hiding in the nearby Verteba Cave. After being discovered there, they moved to Priest’s Grotto—a more remote and lesser-known cave. But life inside was incredibly difficult. They spent most of their time in complete darkness, lighting candles only briefly each day to prepare food.

According to one of the survivors, the children didn’t even remember what the sun looked like. One little girl, Pepkala Blitzer, asked her mother to blow out “the bright candle” when she finally stepped outside. She was talking about the sun.

Food was a constant concern. One person from each family would sneak out about once a month to look for supplies, carefully avoiding any smoke from their cooking fires that might give away their location. They lived mostly on broth and potatoes. Firewood was rare, and everything had to be done with the utmost care. Even something as simple as making soup required planning to keep them from suffocating or attracting attention.

The conditions were harsh. Survivors recalled the cold, the dampness, and the stillness. “We just lay there in the cold waiting to die,” one woman later told a researcher. They discarded their shoes, using their bare feet to feel their way through the blackness. The cave offered some essentials—most importantly, a natural underground water source that was so clean it helped keep them alive.

They stayed hidden until April 1944, when they received a message in a bottle left near the entrance: “The Germans have already gone.” It had been placed there by a Ukrainian farmer who had helped them. When they emerged, the townspeople were shocked at how pale and sickly they looked. Many couldn’t eat properly at first. One child had developed scurvy due to lack of vitamins. Still, all 38 people made it out alive.

Their story might have remained buried if not for Chris Nicola, a New York police officer and amateur cave explorer. While exploring Priest’s Grotto in 1993, he found small items—shoes, utensils, buttons—that suggested someone had lived there. Locals shared vague stories about Jews hiding in the caves during the war, but no one knew much. Nicola spent the next decade tracking down survivors. It turned out some were living just miles from him in Queens. One was Dorothy Reibel Karpf.

Dorothy had been 11 when she came out of the cave with her mother, brothers, and sister. Her father had been taken earlier, and she never saw him again. For decades, she kept the story mostly to herself. But when Nicola started piecing things together, her family realized the significance. In 2006, some of them even returned to the cave with Nicola. Crawling through narrow tunnels and total darkness, they got a firsthand sense of what their relatives had endured.

Not everyone in the surrounding villages supported the families. While some sold them food or left supplies, others tried to expose them, and after the war, at least one survivor was reportedly killed by townspeople afraid they would want their homes or belongings back.

After the war, most of the survivors ended up in North America. Dorothy’s family spent years in displaced persons camps, and eventually some moved to Canada, while others found new lives in Israel or the United States. Her son, Len Karpf, said it was only through Nicola’s research and persistence that they began to piece together the fuller story of what their relatives had survived.

Nicola eventually helped produce a documentary titled No Place on Earth, directed by Janet Tobias, with award-winning photographer Christopher Beauchamp serving as Director of Photography. In the film, he and four survivors recount what happened in Priest’s Grotto. He also co-wrote a book aimed at younger readers, hoping the story would reach future generations.

Even with all the details now known, it’s still hard to grasp how 38 people lived in total darkness for well over a year — surviving on whatever food they could find, holding their breath every time someone left the cave, and never knowing if they would make it through the next week. And yet they did. Because they found an unimaginable place to hide, stuck together, and endured — one day at a time.

Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5