Israel: Dug by Jews, tunnel from Nazi era found in Lithuania

JERUSALEM — In a Lithuanian forest, an international research team has pinpointed the location of a legendary tunnel that Jewish prisoners secretly dug out with spoons to try to escape their Nazi captors during World War II, the Israel Antiquities Authority announced Wednesday.

The tunnel, located in the Ponar forest, known today as Paneriai, outside of the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius, is the site where about 100,000 people, including 70,000 Jews, were killed and thrown into pits during Nazi occupation.

In the quest to find the tunnel, the team of archaeologists, geophysicists and Jewish historians from Israel, the United States, Canada and Lithuania did not want to disturb any human remains in the mass burial pits at the site.

[...] the researchers used scanning technology called electrical resistivity tomography — the same kind used in mineral and oil exploration — to map out the path of the 112-foot-long tunnel.

According to accounts, one prisoner, Isaac Dogim, was piling decomposed corpses when he recognized members of his own family, including his wife.

Guards quickly discovered them and many were shot, but 11 prisoners managed to escape to the forest, reach partisan forces and survive the war.