The historic work of an international team of archaeologists, scientists and geophysicists that includes Dr. Philip Reeder, dean of the Bayer School of Natural and Environmental Sciences, will be the focus of an upcoming NOVA special on PBS.
The group of experts have pinpointed an area in Lithuania that was once recognized as one of the important Jewish centers in the world. Vilnius was known as the “Jerusalem of the North,” until the Nazis destroyed it. About 95 percent of the Jewish population there was murdered, and its synagogues and institutions were reduced to ruins.
In their work to recover this lost world, the team is excavating the remains and hoping to uncover one of greatest secrets: a lost escape tunnel dug by Jewish prisoners inside a horrific Nazi execution site.
NOVA will feature the team’s work in Holocaust Escape Tunnel on PBS on Wednesday, April 19, at 9 p.m. The film was screened last month at a special event at the Omni William Penn Hotel, which was followed by a panel discussion.
For more information on the special, visit the PBS website.