Introduction to the Photo
A man in a long coat with a full head of hair and sunken cheeks kneels at the edge of a mass grave, resigned to his fate. The dozens of bodies beneath him and the gunman pointing a gun at the back of his head leave no doubt – he knows his life will soon end. The identity of the victim remains a mystery, but a match with the perpetrator has been found with 99 percent certainty.
The Perpetrator
The shooter in the photo, striking a "casual pose" while displaying "performative indifference" and "procedural objectivity," is most likely Nazi war criminal Jakobus Onnen, and the photo was likely a Nazi trophy, said German historian Jürgen Matthäus. The latest findings from the former head of research at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum were recently published in the Journal of Historical Science.
Historical Significance
This photo became one of the most famous images of the Holocaust and is titled “The Last Jew in Vinnitsa.” It first came to attention in 1961 during the trial of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in Israel. However, little was known about the image until now and some of it later turned out to be false. Investigations have shown that the crime took place in Berdychiv, about 150 kilometers from Kiev, not in the Ukrainian city of Vinnytsia as originally suspected.
The History of the Photo
According to the news agency United Press International (UPI), which distributed the photo at the time, it was provided by a Holocaust survivor from Chicago. He reportedly received the photo in Munich in 1945 shortly after its liberation by American troops and gave it to UPI. The picture had been mislabeled for a long time. It was only in 2023 that Matthäus discovered that the photo was not taken in Vinnytsia between 1941 and 1943, as originally suspected, but in Berdychiv.
Discovery of the Crime Scene
The error was discovered by accident. A few years ago, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington received the war diaries of the Austrian Wehrmacht soldier Walter Materna, who was stationed in Berdychiv in 1941. They contained a print of this photo, but of significantly better quality than the previously known copy. On the back it said: "End of July 1941. Execution of Jews by the SS in the Berdychiv Citadel. July 28, 1941." A diary entry by Materna from the same day, in which he describes the murder of hundreds of Jewish people in the same pit of the Berdychiv citadel, confirmed the theory that the crime scene was not Vinnytsia but Berdychiv.
Successful Use of Hive Minds
Matthäus then received several tips from readers who claimed to have recognized the perpetrator. One of them came from a retired high school teacher who wrote that the "terrible picture" had played a role in his family for decades, "because it shows an SS member who resembles one of my wife’s uncles, her mother’s brother… An uncle who was ‘on site’ as a member of Einsatzgruppe C during the period in question," Matthäus wrote in the Journal of Historical Science.
The Perpetrator’s Background
This “uncle” was Jakobus Onnen, who was born into a middle-class family in the East Frisian village of Tichelwarf near the Dutch border in 1906. He studied French, English and sports in Göttingen to become a teacher there, following in his late father’s footsteps. He later taught at the German Colonial School in Witzenhausen. In 1931 he joined the Sturmabteilung (SA), a paramilitary organization of the Nazi Party, and a year later he switched to the SS, a kind of elite Nazi police force that originally functioned as Adolf Hitler’s bodyguard.
Use of AI in Identification
Onnen was never investigated because he died in combat in August 1943. In addition, his sister had destroyed a collection of letters he had sent her, making it impossible to reconstruct the events. Despite these hurdles, artificial intelligence experts pitched in and were able to use AI-based facial recognition software to determine the killer’s identity with a high degree of certainty. This feat was achieved primarily with the help of the high school teacher, who recognized his relative in the picture and sent photos for comparison.
The Victims Remain Unknown
The shooter’s name and biographical information are now known. However, as is often the case, the victim remains unknown, although his face is clearly visible in the photo. This is not surprising, said Matthäus, since the Nazis – unlike with deportations from Western Europe – deliberately did not list the names of the people shot in Eastern Europe. Over time, there have been increasingly massive efforts to de-anonymize victims through name identification.
Future Possibilities
The historian remains “cautiously optimistic” that interdisciplinary collaboration, hive minds and AI will one day make it possible to identify the victim in this photo and open up many new possibilities for Holocaust research. If this is possible for this photo, perhaps this is possible for letters and diaries. I think a lot depends on the willingness of society to get involved, not just the political class. But individuals and families also have to deal with it.
