Chil­dren’s

The Secret of Priest’s Grot­to: A Holo­caust Sur­vival Story

Peter Lane Tay­lor; Chris­tos Nicola
  • Review
By – April 2, 2012

Two authors, a cave expert and a pho­tog­ra­ph­er, tell this almost unbe­liev­able sto­ry of how thir­ty-eight Jews from a vil­lage in the Ukraine sur­vived the Holo­caust. They clung tena­cious­ly to life in two dif­fer­ent caves for over one year, and some­how man­aged to come out of the expe­ri­ence phys­i­cal­ly, men­tal­ly, and emo­tion­al­ly intact. We feel admi­ra­tion and empa­thy for these deter­mined peo­ple who risked every­thing in order to stay together. 

The sto­ry of the caves is inter­wo­ven with the sto­ry of these people’s sur­vival. The authors con­duct­ed exten­sive inter­views and con­sult­ed the mem­oir, We Fight to Sur­vive, writ­ten in 1960 by Esther Ster­mer, the matri­arch of one of the fam­i­lies. This book reads like an adven­ture sto­ry with a sus­pense-filled plot and fas­ci­nat­ing char­ac­ters. How­ev­er, this is bru­tal fact, not arti­fi­cial fic­tion. Gen­er­ous mar­gins, gor­geous pho­tos of the peo­ple and places involved, accu­rate maps and fas­ci­nat­ing side­bars make for a hand­some book. The only ele­ments lack­ing are an index and bib­li­og­ra­phy. One of the sur­vivors, Shulim Ster­mer, states: Every­one has it inside of them to sur­vive.” Peter Tay­lor won­dered if he would be capa­ble of the same will to fight for his own family’s sur­vival. The Secret of Priest’s Grot­to brings us face to face with this dif­fi­cult ques­tion. Ages 10 – 14.

Andrea David­son is the librar­i­an of The Tem­ple-Tifer­eth Israel in Beach­wood, Ohio. She holds an M.L.S. from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Michi­gan and is a for­mer mem­ber of the Syd­ney Tay­lor Book Awards Com­mit­tee. She enjoys try­ing out the books she reviews on the kids at the Tem­ple and on her grandchildren.

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