The Boy in the Photograph: A Mystery from the Warsaw Ghetto

The Year: 1943. The Place: Warsaw Ghetto, Poland. Situation: Differing Accounts.

This is perhaps the most iconic photograph of the Warsaw Ghetto: a child with raised hands emerging from a burning bunker, staring at a Nazi soldier pointing a gun with a sadistic grin twisting his lips. Captured by a tall Nazi officer named Franz Konrad, the photograph is part of an album prepared by Jürgen Stroop, the man who crushed the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, to present to his superiors. The gazes of those photographed scatter in every direction after an unknown period spent in a dark bunker, exposed to a panoramic view of destruction and death.

Despite the chaos surrounding the ghetto, researchers have succeeded in identifying almost all 23 people in the photograph. For example, the soldier aiming the gun is Josef Blösche, Stroop's bodyguard, who took part in human hunts and was active in the ghetto's final year. After the war, Blösche hid his identity; his face was disfigured beyond recognition in an elevator accident. He was captured 26 years later by East German authorities.

In stark contrast, the identities of the Jews in the photograph were also discovered. The little girl watching from the side is seven-year-old Hanna Lamet, who was murdered in Majdanek shortly after the photo was taken. Standing to her right is her mother, Mathilde Lamet, who survived and immigrated to Israel. The teenager carrying a white bag is 14-year-old Aaron Kartuzinski, who perished in Auschwitz.

Most mysterious of all is the identity of the leading child, about whom there are seven versions, none verified with certainty. Some claim he is Artur Domb Sjemjontek, but it turns out he perished six months earlier. Others identified him as Levi Zeilinwarger, Tzvi Nussbaum, or Israel Rondel. In fact, all versions might be correct, or none. It is hard to know, hard to identify.

In the end, the boy's identity remains a mystery. We do not know if he lived or died, or what became of him. His anonymity symbolizes the million and a half children lost in the Holocaust, who turned to ashes.