No Place on Earth is a flawed, but must see docudrama of Ukrainian Jews forced to hide in underground caves from the Nazis. No Place on Earth frames the narrative by initially focusing on a New Yorker cave explorer, Chris Nicola, and his struggle to learn more about the people who were in the cave. Unsurprisingly the locals are reticent perhaps because they and their ancestors are complicit with the villains in the story or because Nicola’s search overlapped with the end of the Soviet Union, and there was fear of talking about anything with an American. I suppose that we are lucky that No Place on Earth was made during the brief time between the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the Russian invasion of the Ukraine.
Unsurprisingly the answer to most questions can be found in NYC where some of the survivors relocated after WWII. One of the survivors, Esther Stermer, wrote a book about her experience called We Fight to Survive, which I have been unable to find. It is amazing that even with survivors and written accounts, this story would have been lost if not for the curiosity of a random spelunker. The rest of No Place on Earth consists of interviews with survivors and recreation of their accounts on location with actors.
No Place on Earth is flawed because the narrative framing technique confuses more than clarifies, but the docudrama is still compelling viewing because No Place on Earth is a survival story in the face of overwhelming human evil and natural obstacles. These were regular people who broke records for living underground not out of a sense of ambition, but out of necessity. It was not only the invading Nazis who tried to root them out, but also their former neighbors, including Christians, who took delight in killing them. No Place on Earth is a necessary reminder that not all calls for citizens to unite are good, especially if the call is instigated during an invasion, and the motivation is the dehumanization and hatred of any segment of society.