Dug by Jews, tunnel from Nazi era found in Lithuania

NOVA joined the global group organized by Freund and Seligman, who initiated the multi-disciplinary investigation with geophysicists Paul Bauman and Alastair McClymont from Worley Parsons, Inc.’s Advisian Division in Canada; The Vilna Gaon Jewish State Museum and Tolerance Center of Lithuania; geoscientists at University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, and a leading cartographer from Duquesne University, as well as students and staff.

It’s been estimated that up to 100,000 people -most of them Lithuanian and Polish Jews -were massacred at the infamous killing site in the Ponar forest, just outside the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius, between 1941 and 1944. With the retreat of the German forces on the eastern front and the advance of the Red Army, a special unit formed in 1943 was tasked with covering up the tracks of the genocide. They were brought over from the Stutthof concentration camp, in what is now Poland, for the goal of digging up the mass graves at Ponary, where an estimated 100,000 people had been killed there since 1941.

As they worked with their legs shackled, all the prisoners knew that upon finalizing the morbid task they too would be murdered by their captors, resulting in some of the workers deciding to escape by digging a tunnel from the pit.

During the months-long work, the prisoners, chained to one another, secretly dug the underground tunnel out of a pit they were kept in. On April 15, 1944, the last night of Passover that year, about 40 of the prisoners attempted to escape through the tunnel. Guards quickly discovered them and many were shot, but 11 prisoners managed to escape to the forest, reach partisan forces and survive the war.

In recent years, archaeologists have used their skills to uncover evidence of atrocities at several other World War II sites. According to the IAA, the 35-meter tunnel was pinpointed by a team from Israel, the U.S., Canada, and Lithuania using mineral and oil exploration scanning technology.

“There were 500 years of creativity, a vibrant community”, said Seligman, the archaeologist, referring to Jewish history in Lithuania.

“This discovery is a heartwarming witness to the victory of hope over desperation”, he said. “The exposure of the tunnel enables us to present, not only the horrors of the Holocaust, but also the yearning for life”.

The Israel Antiquities Authority announced the discovery on Wednesday in a statement.

For decades, many have told stories about an escape tunnel that was dug by hand at Ponar, Lithuania, aHolocaust mass burial site.

The finding “is yet more proof negating the lies of the Holocaust deniers”, Israeli Culture Minister Miri Regev said.

An archeological team that Nova is filming for a PBS documentary has made a major discovery at a Lithuanian Holocaust site.

The findings at Ponar will be documented in a film set to air on the PBS science series NOVA in 2017.