Nazi Mass Execution Trenches at Fort IX, Kaunas Lithuania

Abstract

Shortly after the Nazi occupation of Lithuania in June of 1941, they began to round up the country’s Jewish population as part of the Nazi’s “Final Solution”. At Fort IX as many as 45,000 Jews and Communists were killed in series of execution trenches. In 1944, the Nazis knew that they were going to lose the war and needed to eliminate the evidence of the murders. The bodies were then exhumed from the trenches, burned, and the remains were spread across the landscape, leaving very little evidence. In July of 2017, Ground penetrating radar (GPR) grids using 225 MHz and 450 MHz antenna with step sizes of .1 and .05 meters, respectively, were taken in the locations where the trenches were thought to be. GPR profiles were processed using both GFP_Edit and EKKO_Project. The profiles show the existence of horizontal subsurface disturbances at the 10, 20, 30, and 40 meter marks. These correspond to eye-witness and past archaeological accounts. The results collected from this ground penetrating radar project provide important evidence in verifying the horrendous mass murders conducted by the Nazi Regime during the Holocaust.