A man with a long coat, thick hair and sunken cheeks kneels at the edge of a mass grave, resigned to his fate. The dozens of corpses beside him and the armed Nazi who has pointed his gun at his head leave no room for doubt – the man knows that his life has come to an end. To this day the identity of the victim remains unknown – however that of the perpetrator is now considered 99% certain.

The cold man with the gun is most likely the Nazi war criminal Jacobus Onenas mentioned by the German historian Jürgen Mathews.

The latest findings of the former head of research at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum were recently published in the journal Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft (“Journal of Historical Science”) published by Metropol Verlag. “This is a huge step towards understanding the historical reality of the Holocaust”Mateus explains to DW.

One of the most famous photographs of the Holocaust

The photograph is one of the most famous images of the Holocaust, known as “The Last Jew in Vinnytsia”. The photo first came to light in 1961, as part of the trial of Nazi criminal Adolf Eichmann in Israel. But until today we knew very little about her – and some of what we “knew” turned out to be untrue.

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The United Press International (UPI), which published the photo at the time, received it from Al Moss, a Holocaust survivor. Moss said he received it in Munich in 1945, shortly after his release from American troops, and turned it over to UPI.

The last Jew of Berdichev

In 2023, however, Mateus found that the photo was not taken in Vinnytsia, as was believed until then, but in Berdychiv, about 150 kilometers away from Kyiv.

The discovery was made rather by chance. A few years ago, the US Holocaust Museum received the war diaries of Austrian Wehrmacht soldier Walter Materna, who was serving in Berdychiv in 1941. The diaries contained the same photo – and in much better quality. On the back was written: “End of July 1941. Execution of Jews by the SS in Berdychiv Fortress. 28 July 1941”.

The search for the executor

In late 2023, Mateus published the findings of his research in the journal Holocaust and Genocide Studies.

After the publication of the magazine, the historian received a lot of information from readers who claimed to have identified the perpetrator. A retired professor wrote to him that this “horrific image” haunted his family for decades, “because it shows an SS member who looks like my wife’s uncle, her mother’s brother, who was there as a member of Einsatzgruppe C at the time.”

This “uncle” was Jacobus Onen, born in 1906 in the village of Tichelwarf near the Dutch border. He studied French, English and sports in Göttingen, with the intention of becoming a teacher. In 1931 he joined the SA, the paramilitary organization of the Nazi party, and a year later he was transferred to the SS. In June 1941 he became a member of Einsatzgruppe C, a unit that carried out mass murders of hundreds of thousands of Jews in Eastern Europe.

“His joining the SA and later the SS and his student career in Göttingen – where the Nazi student movement was extremely strong – clearly show the process of nazization that Onen went through,” observes Matthews.

The AI ​​confirmed Onen’s identity

Onen was killed in action in August 1943. And his sister had destroyed a collection of his letters, making it impossible to cross-reference the facts through his own accounts.

Despite the obstacles, artificial intelligence experts were instrumental in identifying it. Using facial recognition software based on artificial intelligence they were able to identify the killer with a very high degree of certainty, thanks mainly to the professor who recognized his relative and sent his photos for comparison.

“The greater the interdisciplinary collaboration – something that is not entirely self-evident in the humanities – the better,” emphasizes Mateus, adding that collaborative research around the Holocaust can involve art historians, psychologists, political scientists, artificial intelligence experts and others.

The victim remains unidentified

The name and biographical details of the executor are now known. However, the victim remains unidentified – as in so many other cases – even though his face is clearly visible in the photo. This is of course not surprising, as Mateus explains, given that the Nazis deliberately did not record the names of those they executed in Eastern Europe.

“In recent years, enormous efforts have been made to identify the victims. Who were these people? Much of the research was done thanks to the input of survivors, who recognize people from photographs, testimonies and records,” says Mateus.

The historian, however, is “moderately optimistic” that artificial intelligence, collective research and interdisciplinary cooperation will one day be able to reveal the identity of the victim of the photograph, but also to help broaden and deepen historical research around the Holocaust.

“A lot also depends on the will of society – not only politicians, but also people and families themselves, who have to face their past,” concludes the historian.

Edited by: Giorgos Passas