Locating a Mass Execution Trench From The Holocaust (Shoah): Subsurface Imaging Within a Coastal Dune System, Šķēde, Latvia

Abstract

The Shoah, commonly referred to as the Holocaust, was the organized mass execution of Jewish civilians incongruent with Nazi Germany's political agenda. From December 15-17th 1941, a massacre of ~2,700 Latvian Jewish civilians occurred along the Baltic Sea in Šķēde, Latvia. An elongated depression, running north to south, parallel to the shoreline, was repurposed as a mass burial site after being utilized for military training during World War I. The research goal was to locate the mass burial trench described in the 1945 Soviet Commission Report. Ground penetrating radar (GPR), capable of imaging subsurface sediment layers, was employed to aid in identifying the trench. Using a 500 MHz antennae, traces were triggered 0.02m by an odometer wheel. The GPR profile exhibited discontinuous, hummocky reflections, starting at a depth of ~1.9m. The reflections deviate from the expected sequential deposition pattern typical of coastal dune environments. The reflections suggest that the bodies in the mass burial disrupted the aeolian depositional process, indicating an association with the Šķēde execution. The results contribute to furthering the understanding of mass killing that occurred at Šķēde, Latvia.