The remains of thousands of Jews killed by the Nazis have been found in southern Ukraine near the site of what was once a concentration camp, a Jewish community representative said Tuesday.

The mass grave was found by chance last month when workers were laying gas pipelines in the village of Gvozdavka-1, near Odessa, said Roman Shvartsman, a spokesman for the regional Jewish community.

He said that Nazis established a concentration camp near the village in November 1941 and killed about 5,000 Jews at or near the site.

"Several thousand Jews executed by the Nazis lie there," Shvartsman told the Associated Press.

Ukraine's Jewish population was devastated during the Holocaust.

Babi Yar, a ravine outside the capital Kiev where the Nazis slaughtered some 34,000 Jews over two days in September 1941, serves as a powerful symbol of the Holocaust.