'Last Jew in Vinnitsa' photo
'Last Jew in Vinnitsa' photo
The 'Last Jew in Vinnitsa' is the name given to an infamous black-and-white photograph[1] taken during the Holocaust, depicting the execution of a Jewish man by a German SS officer near Berdychiv, Ukraine, on July 28, 1941. The image, introduced as evidence in the 1961 Eichmann trial in Jerusalem, has become one of the most widely circulated and haunting visual records of the Nazi genocide.
Contents
Identification of the Perpetrator
In 2025, German historian Jürgen Matthäus identified the SS officer in the photograph as Jakobus Oehnen, a former schoolteacher from western Germany who had joined the SS after previously serving in the SA. The breakthrough came through a study published in a historical science journal and later reported in international media.[2][3]
According to Matthäus, Oehnen had participated in mass executions of Jews in Berdychiv as part of a 700-man mobile SS unit assigned to "cleanse" rear areas following the Nazi advance into the Soviet Union. His unit was responsible for the deaths of over 100,000 civilians, most of them Jews, by the fall of 1942. Oehnen was killed in combat in 1943.
Contents of the Photograph
The image captures a Jewish man kneeling at the edge of a freshly dug mass grave while an SS officer—now identified as Oehnen—stands behind him, aiming a pistol at his neck. The execution is moments from taking place. At least 20 SS soldiers are visible in the background, standing idly and expressionlessly as they observe the killing.
The photograph is notable for the clarity of the executioner's appearance: Oehnen wears a beret and glasses, with one hand behind his back and the other holding the pistol. His uniform is neatly pressed and boots polished, evoking a grotesque contrast between his composed appearance and the brutality of his act.
A mound of sand in the foreground indicates earth displaced from the grave, likely dug by the victims themselves. At the bottom of the pit, dozens of corpses are already visible. The identity of the Jewish victim in the photo remains unknown.
Context and Location
Although long believed to have been taken in or near Vinnitsa, the photo was actually taken at a fortress near Berdychiv, approximately 70 kilometers away. Berdychiv, once a prominent center of Hasidic Judaism, was home to approximately 20,000 Jews before the Nazi occupation in July 1941. When the Red Army liberated the city in January 1944, only 15 Jews remained.
According to Matthäus, the photograph was taken just three weeks after Berdychiv fell to the Nazis and shortly before the Jewish population was forced into a ghetto.
Discovery and Historical Documentation
The photo was first made public during the 1961 trial of Adolf Eichmann. It was submitted as evidence by Ed Moss, a Holocaust survivor who had received the photo from an American soldier in Munich in 1945. Over the years, the image was published under titles such as "The Last Jew in Vinnitsa" and "Seventy Jews and One Aryan".
In the course of his research, Matthäus discovered a negative of the image in the archives of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., inside the wartime diary of Walter Materna, an Austrian Wehrmacht officer. Materna's diary includes a firsthand account of the massacre and confirms the date and location as July 28, 1941, at a fortress in Berdychiv. He noted that 180 Jews were killed that day, with 300 executed the day before.
Materna's writings also describe Ukrainian collaborators assisting the SS by digging graves and informing on Jewish neighbors.
Facial Identification and AI Analysis
Portions of Matthäus’ research were first published in the German newspaper Die Welt in 2023. A significant breakthrough occurred when a reader contacted Matthäus, believing the SS officer in the photo was his wife’s uncle. A private research firm used artificial intelligence to compare wartime photographs with the image and determined with 99% certainty that the man was Jakobus Oehnen.
The identity of the photographer is still unknown, though Matthäus believes it was likely a Wehrmacht soldier.
Legacy
The 'Last Jew in Vinnitsa' photo remains one of the most powerful visual symbols of the Holocaust. For decades, despite its widespread publication, the identities of those involved had remained unverified. The work by Jürgen Matthäus has added critical historical context and human accountability to a once-anonymous act of atrocity.
See Also
References
- ↑ July 1941, a Member of the Waffen-SS Shoots a Jew at a Mass Grave in Vinnitsa, Ukraine. Yad Vashem
- ↑ Avrahami, Zeev (2025-09-28). Holocaust mystery solved: SS officer in infamous ‘Last Jew in Vinnitsa’ photo identified.
- ↑ Wie KI half, diesen Mörder von Berdytschiw zu identifizieren. Der Spiegel, 2025-09-22
