Historians have finally put a name to the Nazi soldier in one of the Holocaust's most haunting photos. Known as "The Last Jew in Vinnitsa," the 1941 image (see it here) shows a Nazi soldier aiming his pistol at a man kneeling on the edge of a body-filled pit; moments later, he will be among the dead. As the New York Times reports, the photo "became an iconic image of the Holocaust for the way it captured the banal savagery of mass slaughter." But until now, both the executioner and victim remained unidentified. The former has now been determined with 99.9% certainty to be Jakobus Onnen, 34.
The breakthrough came from Jürgen Matthäus, a retired researcher from the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, who published his findings in the Journal of Historical Studies. An initial article he wrote about the photo caught the attention of a relative of Onnen's. As Deutsche Welle reports, he contacted Matthäus and said the "horrifying image" had been known in his family for decades "because it shows an SS member who resembles an uncle of my wife, her mother's brother." He provided family photographs. AI technology confirmed the two men were the same, reports the Times.
The Times recounts what is known of Onnen, who joined the Nazi Party in 1931 and the SS a year later. He served at Dachau before joining one of the infamous Einsatzgruppen death squads responsible for mass shootings of Jews in the Soviet Union. Onnen was killed in 1943, likely by Soviet partisans. Though the photo was originally thought to be taken in Vinnitsa, Ukraine, using evidence from a soldier's diary found at the Holocaust Museum, Matthäus determined it was actually taken in Berdichev, about 50 miles away. The victim's identity remains unknown, but researchers point out his face is even clearer, meaning it's possible he could eventually be identified as well. (Read the full Times article, which has much more on the photo and how it emerged.)
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