Free Showing of Holocaust Documentary Will be Sunday in Pavilion A Auditorium

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Jan. 3, 2014) -- Dr. Michael and Mrs. Ellen Karpf are hosting a viewing of “No Place on Earth,” a documentary about a group of Ukrainian Jews who lived in a cave for 18 months during the Holocaust. The viewing is free and open to the public at 2 p.m., Sunday, Jan. 5,  in the Pavilion A auditorium at UK Chandler Hospital. Complimentary parking is available in the Hospital Parking Garage, located at the corner of Transcript Avenue and South Limestone.

Leonard Karpf's mother was nine years old when the group entered the cave.  She is alive today and her son plans to attend the event on her behalf.

In 1942, 38 men, women and children slide down a cold, muddy hole in the ground, seeking refuge from the war above in a pitch-black underground world where no human had gone before. These five Ukrainian Jewish families created their own society where young men bravely ventured into the harrowing night to collect food, supplies and chop firewood.

The girls and women never left; surviving underground longer than anyone in recorded history. Held together by an iron-willed matriarch, after 511 days, the cave dwellers, ages 2 to 76, emerged at war’s end in tattered clothes, blinded by a sun some children forgot existed. Despite all odds, they had survived.

The remarkable true story of NO PLACE ON EARTH starts out as a mystery. While exploring some of the longest caves in the world in southwestern Ukraine in the 1990s, American caver Chris Nicola stumbled onto unusual objects…an antique ladies shoe and comb, old buttons, an old world key. Was the vague rumor true, that some Jews had hid in this cave during WWII and if so, had any survived to tell their tale?

Chris leads four of the survivors back to Ukraine 67 years later to say thank you to “the cave.”

View the trailer : http://www.noplaceonearthfilm.com/

For additional information about the viewing, contact Lori Wilson at laarms2@email.uky.edu or 859-221-2723.

Media Contact: Kristi Lopez, kristi.lopez@uky.edu or 859-806-0445