Monumental discovery of lost Jewish artifacts thought to have been destroyed in holocaust

A treasure trove of lost Jewish artifacts long thought to have been destroyed in the Holocaust have been discovered in Lithuania.

The YIVO Institute of Jewish Research announced more than 170,000 pages of rare documents were found in the Martynas Mazvydas National Library of Lithuania. Tragically, between 90 to 95 percent of Jews living in Lithuania were murdered in the Holocaust.

Among the incredible finds was a postcard from modernist painter Marc Chagall and letters from writer Sholem Aleichem. The find is amazing in part because Nazi forces had been ordered to destroy 70 percent of Jewish documents in Lithuania, with the remaining to be sent for study in Germany.

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The documents were hidden in six different places by a group known as the Paper Brigade.

David Fishman, a professor of Jewish history, told Fox News the discovery is “the most important find since the Dead Sea Scrolls.”

With so many Eastern European Jews killed, these documents will be able to help shed light on life before the Holocaust.