UW-Eau Claire’s geography and anthropology department has gained national attention, including that of National Geographic. Research conducted by Harry Jol, a professor of geography and anthropology, was featured in a National Geographic documentary called “The Hidden Holocaust.”  

The research displayed in this documentary showed UW-Eau Claire students using technology, such as ground-penetrating radar, to discover mass grave sites from the Holocaust, where victims may have been taken outside of concentration camps.  

Phillip Reeder, professor and dean of the Bayer School of Natural and Environmental Sciences at Duquesne University, was featured in the documentary alongside Jol. Reeder said he and Jol have been working together since 1999. 

Jol said that before going abroad, he, Reeder and the students had their research site chosen by an in-country partner. Reeder said these are organizations within the countries they visit that help them with their research.  

Reeder said the organizations they partner with help them get their research started and evolve from there when others learn why they’ve come.  

“We’ll often get contacted then by organizations and individuals that say, ‘Woah, I know where this place is and I think this is what happened here. Would you be interested in going to this place?’” Reeder said. 

Reeder said their main partner is the Jews in Latvia Museum. He also said that many locations he, Jol and the students go to have already been theorized to be mass grave sites, and the team’s research helps organizations be almost certain.  

Jol and the documentary team traveled to Lithuania and Latvia, where he, Reeder and the students conducted research.  

“We’re essentially using science to document history,” Reeder said. 

According to Jol’s website, the UW-Eau Claire research team has conducted research internationally but also locally in Wisconsin. Potter’s Field is the most recent with several other sites going back at least two decades.  

Jol’s website lists several reports dating all the way back to 2015. Jol said the student research team may even have a film crew following them again this upcoming summer.  

Martin Goettl, a professor of geography and anthropology at UW-Eau Claire, works with Jol in conducting research.  

Goettl said he’s helped with the international research since 2019 and has taken three trips but didn’t attend the trip featured in the documentary. However, he helped them prepare for the trip and looked over data afterward.  

News and documentary crews are drawn to this research because of its “human aspect,” according to Goettl.  

“There’s still a lot of people out there that have family members that were in some of these areas that they are connected to,” Goettl said.  

Jol said this research team is unique to UW-Eau Claire because it’s made of undergraduate students, which he said most universities do not do.  

Students are drawn to the research, Jol said, for many reasons such as an interest in current issues, but few Jewish students have joined this project.  

“We have a very low population of Jewish students,” Jol said. “We’ve been trying to grow it.”  

Jol said he and the research team had Jewish students join them in the past who discovered what happened to a relative through the research.  

“Tragedy happens. Awful things happen. We as a team can’t change that, but we can find those locations and memorialize these individuals that were killed or died tragically,” Jol said. “If that’s what we can do, I’m happy with that.” 

Curtin can be reached at [email protected].