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 some 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.

So 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 34-meter (112-foot) -long tunnel.

“To find a little glimmer of hope within the dark hole of Ponar is very important as humans,” said Jon Seligman, an archaeologist with Israel’s antiquities authority, who participated in the expedition.

“The tunnel shows that even when the time was so black, there was yearning for life within that,” he added.

Toward the end of the war, the Nazis sought to erase the evidence of their mass killings. Jewish and Soviet prisoners were brought to the Ponar forest from Stutthof concentration camp. With their legs chained, they were forced to dig up the mass graves, collect bodies and burn them.

The prisoners were dubbed the Burning Brigade and they lived in fear that once their task was complete, they too would be killed.

According to accounts, one prisoner, Isaac Dogim, was piling decomposed corpses when he recognized members of his own family, including his wife. He identified her by the medallion he had given her for their wedding.

He is credited with organizing the escape.

At night, the prisoners were held in one of the pits used in the killings. For three months, some of the prisoners secretly dug an underground tunnel to escape.

Then on April 15, 1944, in the middle of the night, 40 prisoners filed off their chains and fled through the narrow 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.

“It is a very important discovery, because this is another proof of resistance of those who were about to die,” said Markas Zingeris, director of the Vilna Gaon Jewish State Museum in Vilnius.

A Lithuanian archaeologist discovered the tunnel entrance in 2004, and the museum called on the research team to search for the entire tunnel. The team traced the length of the tunnel and found the tunnel exit. Their quest is the subject of a forthcoming documentary by the science series NOVA, premiering in the U.S. next year.

Last year, the same research team used ground penetrating radar to discover parts of the old Great Synagogue of Vilna, which was demolished by Soviet authorities after the war. The team is now excavating at the site to uncover the history of Jewish life in Vilnius.

“There were 500 years of creativity, a vibrant community,” said Seligman, the archaeologist, referring to Jewish history in Lithuania. “We can’t just look at the Holocaust.”

About the find and history of the Ponar/Vilna site:

— On June 8, 2016, scientists using Electrical Resistivity Tomography (ERT) successfully located the contours and direction of the Ponar escape tunnel.

— The international expedition team: Archaeologist Richard Freund (University of Hartford), Jon Seligman (Israel Antiquities Authority) initiated a multi-disciplinary investigation with geophysicists Paul Bauman and Alastair McClymont (Worley Parsons, Inc.’s Advisian Division in Canada); PBS science series NOVA; The Vilna Gaon Jewish State Museum and Tolerance Center of Lithuania; geoscientist Harry Jol (University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire); leading cartographer Philip Reeder (Duquesne University).

— The tunnel is at the Ponar massacre site, located about 10 kilometers from the city of Vilnius, Lithuania, and is situated below the surface at varying depths, from 1.5 to 2.5 to 3 meters.

— Since 1944, the Ponar site has held the remains of 100,000 people who were executed there by the Nazis, including 70,000 Jews shot and buried from July 1941 through July 1944.

— The expedition employed non-invasive archaeological identification methods and sub-surface geophysical mapping technology—including drone technology, ERT, Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR), LiDar and advanced software analysis–to protect the sanctity of the resting places at the massacre site.

— Until now, the only element of the tunnel known has been the entrance, located in the pit that housed the 80 prisoners (76 men, 4 women). The rest of the tunnel has eluded scientists since WWII, though many attempts have been made to find it.

— The research team also successfully identified the exact location of other unmarked mass burial pits in the forest adjacent to the site, which may hold the remains of as many as 10,000 additional people.

— The expedition team has also made other recent finds using GPR, including the Great Synagogue at Vilna, also now being excavated.

— Before WWII, Vilna was known as the “Jerusalem of Lithuania” and was home to nearly 100,000 Jews.

— The group of 80 Jewish prisoners, members of the so-called “burning brigade,” were sent by the Nazis to Ponar (Paneriai in Lithuanian) to incinerate the bodies and burn the evidence of the destruction of Lithuanian Jews during WWII.

— On April 15, 1944, the last night of Passover, 80 Jewish prisoners attempted to escape from their holding pit at Ponar through a narrow, 100-foot tunnel they had dug by hand over 76 days using using small improvised tools. Only a dozen or so survived the treacherous trip out of the tunnel and made it to the forest and river beyond the camp. Eleven survived the war and gave their testimonies.

— A civil engineer among the prisoners had created a plan that centered on a single 70 x 65 cm hole that the prisoners painstakingly excavated each night. They began in earnest in February 1944 and dug for nearly three months.

(Dov Gefen – YWN / AP)