A SUBSURFACE INVESTIGATION WITH GROUND PENETRATING RADAR IN ŠEDUVA, LITHUANIA: DO HOLOCAUST MEMORIALS ACTUALLY MARK THE LOCATION OF JEWISH MASS GRAVES?

The genocide of WWII known as the Holocaust resulted in the death of 6 million Jewish people. The town of Šeduva in Lithuania had a growing Jewish population of 700 and in 1941, they were all executed. Over the past decade the town has placed multiple sculptures as memorials. A museum called “The Lost Shtetl” is presently being constructed to commemorate the memories of the Jewish people. The goal of the project is to answer the question about a memorial called “Adobe of the Star of Light” and whether it is located on the grave of the 27 Jewish victims murdered in the Liaudiškių Forest 10km southwest of Šeduva. Ground penetrating radar (GPR) provides information about graves in the subsurface non-invasively. GPR was the primary geophysics tool used to locate the buried deceased. The pulseEKKO Pro GPR with a 500MHz antennae frequency, 0.02m step size and line spacing of 0.25m was utilized. The EKKO_ProjectV5 GPR software allowed for the collation, processing, and interpretation of the 5mx30m grid containing 20 lines. The grid was on the west side of the memorial. Soil collected with a 6cm soil auger provide references for understanding the sediment layering in the GPR profile. The site was surrounded by a variety of deciduous and conifer trees with young oak and pine present closest to the target area. From the surface to a depth of 0.55m tree roots were seen throughout the grid. The location of the roots is characterized by hyperbolic reflections. An abnormal area in line 7 measuring 8m in length at a depth of 0.30m was sampled revealing tree roots and sandy soil with a Munsell hue of yellow-red (YR). Line 7 with a length of 14m at a depth of 2.3m-3.3m showed dipping reflections. The patterns seen on line 7 paired with grid depth slices raise the suspicion of human influences indicating that bodies may lie beneath the ground. A decomposed body that is 82 years old will be homogenous to the surrounding sediment samples in the site’s environment. Providing the community of Šeduva with the location of graves can give closure to people of Jewish descent by acknowledging an undocumented past. Knowing many of my ancestors were born and raised in the town of Šeduva elicits a unique connection fueled by local and international collaborators need for answers. GPR is a valued geoarchaeological tool that can identify features that illuminate the history below ground.