Ponary cmentarz, Vilnius

incredible. beautiful scenery despite the heaviness of what occurred there. very moving.

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In the Killing Ravine.....I am debating whether to recommend coming and remembering...or to avoid supporting the descendants of the murderers and their helpers

Discovered tunnels dug with nails and spoons of Jewish prisoners. Cam Mai Follows Young Intellectuals • 2.7.16 Prison pit in the Nazi forest of Ponar. Using new scanning technology, archaeologists have discovered a 35m-long tunnel dug by Jewish prisoners with nails and spoons during World War II. The Nazi disaster that slaughtered 100,000 Jewish prisoners of war in the woods around a rural motel is considered the scariest event of World War II. Location where the tunnel was discovered. About 70,000 Jews in Vilnius and the surrounding area marched into the woods, tied up, shot dead and dumped in a large pit. Later, Polish scholars, monks and resistance soldiers and 7,500 Soviet soldiers were also massacred here. To escape the "hell on earth", a group of 40 skinny and wounded prisoners dug a 35m-long tunnel to escape the Nazis in Ponary, 9.8km south of the Lithuanian city of Vilnius. . These Jewish prisoners known as the "Burning Army" were held in the Stutthof concentration camp near Sztutowo, Poland. Documentary photo of a prison hole in the Nazi forest of Ponar. The Nazis forced them to dig up the bodies of people shot and piled in mass graves in the territory occupied by the Nazis since July 1941, to burn them to hide the crime. The Burning Army was tasked with digging up the bodies and cremating them before the arrival of the Soviet Red Army in 1943 so that the Nazis could mourn their sins. After nearly completing the mission, the army of burning corpses was imprisoned in a large pit, fearing they would be killed, so they used spoons and nails to dig a small tunnel to get out of that hole. They dug continuously for 3 months, on April 15, 1943, they broke the chains on their legs with a nail file, 40 of the troops crawled through the tunnel to get out. But unfortunately, many people were discovered before they reached the fence of the concentration camp. Only 15 people managed to cut the fence to escape into the forest and only 11 people survived the escape. Archaeologists are studying the tunnel. A team of researchers from Israel, the US, Canada and Lithuania has just discovered a 35m long tunnel 1.5 to 2.7m deep underground in the Ponar forest, now known as the Paneriai forest, using resistive tomography technology. electronic. Computed tomography image: the red line is the tunnel running towards the fence. Based on that, they built a 3D image of the tunnel texture. Dr. Jon Seligman, an Israeli - leading the tunnel search team, said: "My family is originally from Lithuania, I couldn't hold water when I discovered the tunnel in the Ponary forest." Dr. Jon Seligman. "This discovery is a powerful demonstration of how faith triumphs over despair." Monument to the victims of the massacre in the Ponary Forest. The newly discovered tunnel is called "the way out of hell". Source: Daily Mail

Memorial site cemetery