Clark U Hosts Archaeologist Who Discovered Holocaust Escape Tunnel

From Clark University: Clark University will host “Escape from the Holocaust: Geoscience and Archaeology,” a lecture by esteemed American archaeologist Dr. Richard A. Freund, at 7 p.m., Thursday, March 30, in the Grace Conference Room, first floor of the Higgins University Center, 950 Main Street, Worcester. This free, public lecture is sponsored by the The David H. ’65 and Edith Chaifetz Endowed Fund for Jewish Studies.

In this talk, Professor Freund will discuss his recent work in Vilna, Lithuania, where he and an excavation team used electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) technology to uncover an escape tunnel which had been hidden for 70 years. The 100-foot tunnel, which was found between five and nine feet below the surface, had been dug over the course of 76 days by 80 prisoners using spoons and other small tools. On the last night of Passover in 1944, the prisoners attempted the escape the tunnel; only 11 survived. Professor Freund’s team also uncovered a previously unknown mass burial pit next to the tunnel which may hold the remains of thousands of people.

Professor Freund is the Maurice Greenberg Professor of Jewish History and the director of the Maurice Greenberg Center for Judaic Studies at the University of Hartford. His books “Digging Through the Bible” (2009) and “Digging Through History” (2016) have unearthed questions about the past, including the Bible, the lost island of Atlantis, and the Holocaust.

Freund’s discovery made international headlines last year. Professor Freund and his colleagues worked on a “Nova” documentary on this discovery, "Holocaust Escape Tunnel," which will premiere on PBS on April 19.

An interview with Clark University graduate Rachel Polinsky, who accompanied Freund on his trip, is available on our website.

For more information about this lecture, call (508) 793-7355.

Founded in 1887 in Worcester, Massachusetts, Clark University is a liberal arts-based research university addressing social and human imperatives on a global scale. Nationally renowned as a college that changes lives, Clark is emerging as a transformative force in higher education today. LEEP (Liberal Education and Effective Practice) is Clark’s pioneering model of education that combines a robust liberal arts curriculum with life-changing world and workplace experiences. Clark’s faculty and students work across boundaries to develop solutions to complex challenges in the natural sciences, psychology, geography, management, urban education, Holocaust and genocide studies, environmental studies, and international development and social change. The Clark educational experience embodies the University’s motto: Challenge convention. Change our world.
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