Bunker-pit where members of the ‘burning brigade’ were kept prisoners

A bunker pit where no massacre took place. The pit was used to imprison 80 prisoners, known as the Incineration Brigade (76 men and 4 women), who, since 1943 onwards, had to exhume and cremate the corpses of those who had been shot. On 15 April 1944, some of the prisoners escaped from the pit after digging a more than 30m long tunnel over a period of 2.5 months but the fate of only 13 is known. According to the testimonies and memories of the members of the corpse-burning brigade who escaped, between December 1943 and April 1944, between 19 and 21 pyres may have been prepared at Paneriai, where between 56,000 and 68,000 corpses may have been burnt.