News of the discovery of the tunnel used by the burners’ brigade to escape from the mass murder site of Ponar near the Lithuanian capital has been picked up by media around the world. The Lithuanian Jewish Community received a report from the Lithuanian ambassador to India that Indian media are reprinting an article about it from the Washington Post.

A team of experts from Israel, Lithuania, the United States and Canada found the escape tunnel, new killing pits, overgrown paths taken by the victims to the execution site and the distribution of human ashes and crushed bone at the site.

The burners’ brigade was formed by the Nazis to exhume the corpses of Jews shot at Ponar, burn them in large piles and crush to dust whatever bones or teeth survived the fire. They knew they were condemned to death and over a period of time excavated a tunnel from their place of confinement.

The tunnel has now been measured at about 30 meters using non-invasive technology. It has been exactly located, as were trenches where the victims were held just before being shot. Also, a large pit which had been lost has been rediscovered.

Dr. John Seligman, one of the lead archeologists from the Israeli Antiquities Authority, said only fifteen prisoners actually reached the perimeter fence during the escape and all others were shot. Of the fifteen who did escape, eleven survived the war. He noted of the hundred thousand or so who were shot at Ponar, only eleven escaped.

India’s NDTV carries the story here:
70 Years After Holocaust, Researchers Have Located The Tunnel That Brought 11 Jews To Freedom