The Last Jew in Vinnitsa
Photographer: Unknown (German soldier)
Date: 1941
Location: Vinnytsia (Vinnitsa), Ukraine
This photograph shows an unidentified Jewish man kneeling at the edge of a mass grave, surrounded by members of Einsatzgruppe C — a mobile Nazi SS killing unit — about to be executed in Vinnytsia, Ukraine, in 1941. The image was found in a German soldier's photograph album with the inscription 'Der letzte Jude in Winniza' ('The Last Jew in Vinnitsa') written on the back. It is one of the most haunting and widely reproduced photographs of the Holocaust and of human cruelty more broadly. The mass killing of Jews in Vinnytsia in 1941 was part of the systematic Holocaust perpetrated across occupied Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, in which mobile SS killing squads murdered approximately 1.5 million Jews. The victim's identity has never been established.
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