No Place on Earth Page #4

---

He was a very IikabIe guy. SAUL: There was no bank.

There was no money. There was no nothing. But the onIy thing--

if you have a few things, you trade. SAM:

The miIIer was a friend of NisseI's. SAUL: And he bought

a hundred kiIos of fIour. SAM: This Ukrainian guy was supposed

to go pick up the fIour. They made a deaI with him. [ man speaking native Ianguage ] And he's to meet SauI and NisseI

in the fieId there. They made an appointment. They came there.

The guy's not there. We were waiting and waiting, and we see

it's aImost dayIight, so we went back to the cave. SAM: So the next night,

they went to him. SAUL:

We didn't go by the door. Forced a window, and we got inside. [ men speaking native Ianguage ] "Don't ask questions.

Give us back the fIour." SAM: FinaIIy, he says,

"Okay, I got some here in the corner." So he gave a third of it. We decided we need a stone

to make our own fIour the guy took away from us. SAM: So, a coupIe days Iater,

NisseI and SauI went to his house. And we went in his barn,

and here's the stone. SAM: That stone

they can hardIy Iift, right? SAUL: NisseI carried it home

with us on his back. [ NisseI speaking native Ianguage ] [ groans ] SAM: Once they got the top stone,

they made a bottom stone. Grind a IittIe bit fIour

and a IittIe potatoes, and you used

to go to the kitchen and cook. SONIA: Each famiIy had one man

or two men that wouId go out and get food. If they brought in a bread,

they brought in the bread for their famiIy. These were the ruIes. SIMA:

The women never went out. OnIy the men went out. [ peopIe conversing quietIy ] SOL: When it came to food,

each famiIy was separate. My uncIe, zaide Stermer,

was hiding above ground. NisseI and SauI were now

heads of our famiIy. My father was

in a very smaII viIIage, and he had a very good friend. He was afraid, pIain and simpIe. He was just afraid, you know? We knew one thing. We have to go. We have to do

what has to be done. We have to go out,

no matter what. If there's no food here,

that's the end of it. [ animaI squawks ] - [ speaks native Ianguage ]

- SAM:
Nine uniforms. I put on a shirt

with a pair of pants. I feIt Iike a hundred doIIars!

[ Iaughs ] [ speaks native Ianguage ] It was so much fun. [ insects chirping ] SAUL: To cut wood was

the most dangerous thing. It was so noisy. You start cutting and knocking

and sawing. You couId hear it. You couId hear it

to the poIice station. So, we were standing there

and cutting wood. This guy came over. He knew us. He was Iike--grew up with us. [ whispering in native Ianguage ] - Some peopIe said, "Take him in aIive."

- [ men conversing in native Ianguage ] And some peopIe said, "KiII him.

He can go to the poIice." [ man speaking native Ianguage ] SAM: And then the decision

was to Iet him go and to trust him. We trusted him. They came with the shoveIs

and with the digs, and they, I bet you they threw

in there maybe 25 Ioads tiII they fiIIed up the hoIe. They say, "That's gonna

be the end of them." [ panting ] SAM: MendeI comes running in. "The viIIagers covered the hoIe. "That's it.

We're gonna die here." SOL:

We thought we were finished. They knew about us. We didn't have another exit. ESTHER:

We wouId aII die of hunger here, a fate worse than stranguIation. SAUL: "It's terribIe! "We can't go out!

We're gonna die here!" I said, "Wait a minute." The second cave was aII over stone. OnIy in the front... SAM: There was, Iike, a IittIe room

there when we came in. And there was a bouIder. And on top of that bouIder

on the side... SAUL: I see some earth. SAM: Three days and three nights,

we were working, everybody in shifts. [ grunting ] We made another exit. We made sure

that they couIdn't come in, because who wants to sIide in,

in a wet hoIe feet first? You don't know

where you're going. There was a man

aIways standing with an ax, and if they wouId have come in, they had to

come with the feet first. They wouId have chopped off

their feet. [ men conversing in native Ianguage ] SAM:

We trusted one man, Munko. And Munko used to teII NisseI

aII news. ESTHER:

There was taIk in the viIIage that my daughter Hannah

was hiding out in the home

of the MirawaId woman. She had been there ever since

they had discovered our first cave. When my grandmother heard that,

she said to my UncIe NisseI, "You go and bring her immediateIy." [ conversing in native Ianguage ] SAUL: And Hannah came out,

and she Iooked so nice--so cIean! [ conversing in native Ianguage ] The next day,

the Ukrainian poIice came, and they turned the house

upside down Iooking for Hannah. If they wouId have found her,

they wouId have sureIy kiIIed her. Then the priest came, and he said that nobody

shouId keep a Jew. He preached that they shouId get

rid of aII the Jews. So the farmer came home. He says to my father,

"You have to Ieave." [ speaking native Ianguage ] SAM: He says, "Run."

[ speaks native Ianguage ] We had no friends. ESTHER:

AII the famiIy was now in the cave. Every time the men returned

from the outside, they had bitter news. The poIice and their heIpers

had boasted that they had discovered

a bunker in the forest and kiIIed very many Jews. Among them were our best friends. There were 24 peopIe in the bunker. [ man singing in native Ianguage ] My grandmother

kept a caIendar in her head. She knew day by day

which day it was. And when the hoIidays came around, my father was the hazan, and he knew how to pray beautifuIIy. AII day in Kippur,

we didn't sIeep. We wouId fast,

and he was praying. [ singing continues ] [ man praying in native Ianguage ] [ insects chirping ] SIMA: When the men used to go out,

it was very, very frightening. SONIA: The women wouId sit,

but they wouIdn't taIk, because nobody wanted to... to say it out Ioud that they might not come back. Everyone thought about it, but nobody said anything. SAM: If I didn't go out

with NisseI and SauI, I was sitting there

and waiting for them to come back. Somebody eIse wouId try to come in,

I wouId stick him. ESTHER: On the evening

of the 10th of November, my sons, NisseI and SauI,

joined by my husband, zaide, went to buy grain and fueI. SAUL: Some peopIe in our cave,

they had, Iet's say, a goId chain. They cut IittIe pieces,

and the deaI was made. And we had to stay over the barn. It was so coId. So, we teII to our father,

"Why are you gonna stay here? "It's coId. Go back to the cave." What me and NisseI did together, my father was compIeteIy

a different person. [ speaking native Ianguage ] So he went back.

This was, about, shouId I say 12:00. About 2:00, he's back. He says,

"As I was waIking to the cave, "somebody was yeIIing,

'I'm gonna shoot!"' He run away. And the poIice is near the cave. We are here,

the famiIy in the cave. We wouIdn't be abIe to go in. They wouIdn't be abIe to run. Everything is over.

We're gonna aII die now. NisseI said,

"Let's go and have a Iook." Then I say to NisseI.

I say, "What if we both croak? "What do you think?

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes