Discovering a Holocaust Era Escape Tunnel : GPR Investigation at Ponar, Lithuania

Abstract

Over 100,000 individuals were killed in Ponar Forest, Lithuania from 1941-1944. Eighty Jewish prisoners forced to burn the bodies of the victims were held in the forest for roughly a year. In an attempt to escape, they dug a 30-meter tunnel over the course of 70 days. Eleven people were able to survive the escape to tell the tragic story. The objective of the research is to locate the proposed tunnel and bring scientific validation to the survivors’ stories using ground penetrating radar (GPR) survey.