Discovery of secret tunnel at Ponar, Vilnius, Lithuania

Jews awaiting execution at Ponar, Lithuania (July 1941)

A tunnel in Lithuania used by Jews to escape the Nazis during World War II has been uncovered by an international research team. The Israel Antiquities Authority announced the discovery on Wednesday in a statement.

The tunnel used by the prisoners of Ponar to escape from the Nazis was located using the new technology Electric Resistivity Tomography. The 100-foot-long tunnel at the Ponar forest massacre site near Vilnius has been located through the joint efforts of the Israel Antiquities Authority, University of Hartford, Advisian, Vilna Gaon State Jewish Museum and the PBS Series NOVA.

Some 100,00 people, of whom 70,000 were Jews from Vilna and the surrounding area, were massacred and thrown into pits in the Ponar forest near the Lithuanian capital during World War II. With the retreat of the German forces on the eastern front and the advance of the Red Army…