IThe T image is among the most chilling representations of the Holocaust. A Nazi soldier with glasses points a gun at the head of a resigned man in a suit, kneeling before a pit filled with corpses, surrounded by German troops.
Photos from present-day Ukraine have long been incorrectly associated with the last Jew of Vinica, remaining cloaked in mystery for decades.
Jürgen Matthäus, a German historian based in the U.S., has meticulously pieced together this puzzle for years. With the aid of artificial intelligence, he believes he has successfully identified the perpetrator.
His findings are now published in the esteemed Zeitschrift für geschichtswissenschaft (Journal of Historical Studies), detailing a massacre conducted by the SS on July 28, 1941, likely in the afternoon, at the Berdychiv fortress.
For centuries, Berdychiv has been a vibrant center of Jewish life, located 150 km southwest of Kyiv and about 90 km north of what is now Vinnizzia in English.
One of several mobile units deployed in the newly occupied Soviet Union, the Einsatzgruppe C Commando, was tasked with eliminating “Jews and Partisans” just days before Adolf Hitler’s visit.
Among those involved was Jacobs Onnen, a teacher of French and English, born in the village of Tichelwarf, Germany, near the Dutch border in 1906.
Matthäus described the “incremental process” involving traditional excavations of dusty archives, fortuitous discoveries, peer consultations, and the innovative contributions of volunteers from the open-source journalism group BellingCat.
“This match has a remarkably high confidence level based on the algorithm’s outputs, according to experts,” Matthäus stated.
A preliminary investigation released last year uncovered critical details about the dates, locations, and units involved in the mass shooting, leading to media coverage in Germany.
“The rise of digital tools in the humanities is remarkable, yet most are focused on processing mass data rather than qualitative analysis,” Matthäus commented, reflecting on the potential for AI in his field. Photo: Metropole
Readers have stepped forward, suggesting that communications from Onnen’s family era indicate the shooter could be Jacobs Onnen, his wife’s uncle.
Letters from Onnen from the Eastern Front were destroyed by relatives in the 1990s, but they retained his photographs, which BellingCat volunteers can utilize for AI image analysis.
“Experts explain that achieving a match of 98 or 99.9% in historic photographs is challenging,” said Matthäus. “This often results in forensic discussions.”
Nevertheless, his strong likeness combined with circumstantial evidence provides sufficient credibility for public consideration.
“The growth of digital tools in the humanities is substantial, typically for mass data handling rather than in-depth analysis,” he remarked regarding AI’s application in research.
“It’s clearly not a magic solution; it’s just one of many tools, and human elements remain critical.”
Onnen, who aligned with the Nazi Party prior to Hitler’s ascension in 1933, was raised in an educated family and was fond of “travel and study” in his youth, Matthäus noted.
“Then his trajectory moves eastward, and here he stands,” he added. “Understanding his motivation is one of the toughest questions, as it raises emotional considerations about his posing and self-representation in that context.”
Onnen never advanced beyond a lower rank and was killed in action in August 1943.
“Being involved in such murders is undeniable, and it doesn’t earn you any merits when assigned to these execution units,” Matthäus remarked.
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He expressed regret that a letter possibly revealing Onnen’s ideological stance was lost from the front. Relatives who recalled reading the letters described them as “mediocre.”
Until this spring, Matthäus served as the director of research at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC, where he has been active since 1994.
His latest work, *Gerahmte Gewalt* (Framed Violence), explores photo albums curated by Germans on the Eastern Front during World War II.
He noted that it is “highly likely” that the photograph depicting the Berdychiv genocide was taken by fellow soldiers, who often viewed such snapshots as “trophies” of civilian carnage.
Of the estimated 20,000 Jews in Berdychiv at the time of the German invasion in 1941, only 15 remained by early 1944, as reported by Del Spiegel in relation to the new study.
“These extensive executions persisted until the final day of German dominance in the East,” Matthäus observed.
“I believe this image should hold as much significance as the image of Auschwitz’s Gate, as it illustrates the tangible confrontation between the executioner and the victim.”
Jacobs Onnen, who enrolled in the Nazi Party prior to Hitler’s rise in 1933, hailed from a well-educated background. Photo: Metropole
He emphasized that comprehensive visual and written accounts circulated by German soldiers dismantle the myth of the civilian populace being unaware of the genocide perpetuated in their name.
Matthäus’s project also involves uncovering the identity of the victim in the photograph of Berdychiv. He collaborates with his Ukrainian colleague Andrii Mahaletskyi, utilizing Soviet-era records from the local community.
AI may also assist in this investigative endeavor, especially if equivalent images of men in suits can be identified.
He recognized the complexity of the mission, pointing out that while names of deported individuals from Western Europe were meticulously documented, the identities of most victims exterminated in the east remained unknown for over 80 years.
“The occupied Soviet Union witnessed over a million casualties,” he stated. “The majority remain anonymous, as intended by the perpetrators.”
Source: www.theguardian.com
