In 1940, about 100,000 Jews lived in Vilnius, and there were more than 100 synagogues. 70,000 were killed in the pits in Ponary. Today, there are about 5,000 Jews in Vilnius, with only a single working synagogue, and a second being restored. This evening there was a conflagration behind our hotel on Gelius Street, on the edge of what was the Jewish Quarter and is today's old town. The fire broke out in a courtyard between a bar and a church and a police station, and is still raging at this time. Alastair and I were not alone watching the flames, though the local citizens, police, and firemen seemed remarkably calm given the scale and location of the fire.

June 7, 2016, Rasu Prison in Vilnius. We sent 87 drone photographs to Calgary on Monday night, or 7 AM Calgary time. By the time Alastair and I were ready for brown bread and herring for breakfast on Tuesday, Eric Johnson had stitched the photos together, and used photogrametric mapping software to create a relief map of the prison with 1 cm resolution. Instead of using this map to plan our escape, we used the subtle relief features to focus our geophysical exploration for the grave of Jacob Gens, the Jewish Chief of Police and Head of the Judenrat, the Jewish administration, of the Vilnius Ghetto between 1941 and 1943. Subtle depressions, for instance, could be indicative of a burial. The abandoned church beyond the prison walls was used for Nazi administration in the war. Tomorrow we will carry out surveys in Ponary, trying to improve the mapping of the mass burials of the 100,000 citizens of Vilnius executed in the forest, and trying to locate the escape tunnel of the "Burning Brigade.

Monday, June 6, 2016. Today we accomplished a daring air photo reconnaissance, flying a drone from inside the walls, and over a prison in the beautiful city of Vilnius, Lithuania. Alistair McClymont and I are in Lithuania from June 4 through June 18. We are carrying out geophysical surveys in and around Vilnius at various sites connected to the Holocaust and the liquidation of the estimated 70,000 Jews in the Vilnius Ghetto. Today, we carried out geophysical and aerial photographic surveys in an attempt to locate the grave of the controversial Jewish chief of police of the Jewish police force of the Vilnius Ghetto, Jacob Gens. Of greater historical interest than the burial itself is the account of a cigar box full of personal documents buried alongside Gens. As few of the 70,000 inhabitants of the Ghetto survived the Gestapo ordered liquidation of September 23, 1943, contemporary documentation from the Ghetto administrators are valuable historic resources.

NOVA`s Lithuanian sound man, Vitus, is part of a film crew that is documenting our work in Vilnius, and in the outskirts of nearby Ponary where 100,000 people were murdered and buried in massive pits. Having been in Vilnius less than 24 hours, and knowing very few words of Lithuanian, I am still struggling to distinguish between graffiti and the abundant, creative street art that is everywhere in the City.