WITNESSarchive

W–013 · Documentary photograph and sources

Four People in a Park by Parliament

A Nazi killed his family and then himself before the Red Army arrived: that is how agency captions explain the deaths of four people in a Vienna park near parliament. Yevgeny Khaldei photographed their bodies in 1945. A man lay on the path; three others were near the benches. Khaldei recorded the scene from several positions. The archive gives no exact date.

1. Officers at the scene

Soviet officers stand beside three dead people on benches in a park near Vienna’s parliament. The available archival records do not establish the victims’ identities or how they died. Yevgeny Khaldei, 1945.
Soviet officers stand beside three dead people on benches in a park near Vienna’s parliament. The available archival records do not establish the victims’ identities or how they died. Yevgeny Khaldei, 1945.
Provenance and sources for frame 1

Yevgeny Khaldei photographed this series in a park by the parliament building in Vienna in 1945. Colgate University Museums holds one print as object 1995.12.52, donated by the photographer. Individual file origins and rights are linked below each frame. Displayed file: 2000 × 1385 pixels. Full image record in Russian.

emuseum.colgate.eduView image file

The TASS war correspondent accompanied the Red Army in Vienna. Street fighting there ended on 13 April; Khaldei photographed damaged neighbourhoods as well as the first days after the fighting. In one park picture, Soviet officers stand beside the dead. The archival caption identifies Dmitry Shepilov among them.

2. Four people in the park

Four bodies appear in this view: a man lies on the path in front of the benches, and three other people are on the benches. Photograph by Yevgeny Khaldei, Vienna, 1945.
Four bodies appear in this view: a man lies on the path in front of the benches, and three other people are on the benches. Photograph by Yevgeny Khaldei, Vienna, 1945.
Provenance and sources for frame 2

Yevgeny Khaldei photographed this series in a park by the parliament building in Vienna in 1945. Colgate University Museums holds one print as object 1995.12.52, donated by the photographer. Individual file origins and rights are linked below each frame. Displayed file: 2000 × 1418 pixels. Full image record in Russian.

emuseum.colgate.eduView image file

Original gelatin-silver prints titled “Suicide of a Nazi and His Family” are held by Colgate University Museums. Khaldei himself gave one of the prints to the university museum.

3. Three people on the benches

Three dead people on two park benches. Two are seated with their heads tipped back; another lies along a bench. Their names and relationships are unknown. Yevgeny Khaldei, 1945.
Three dead people on two park benches. Two are seated with their heads tipped back; another lies along a bench. Their names and relationships are unknown. Yevgeny Khaldei, 1945.
Provenance and sources for frame 3

Yevgeny Khaldei photographed this series in a park by the parliament building in Vienna in 1945. Colgate University Museums holds one print as object 1995.12.52, donated by the photographer. Individual file origins and rights are linked below each frame. Displayed file: 1024 × 675 pixels. Full image record in Russian.

russiainphoto.ruView image file

4. Another view of the benches

A second angle on the three bodies. The available catalogue records do not give their names, relationships or the exact day of the photograph. Yevgeny Khaldei, 1945.
A second angle on the three bodies. The available catalogue records do not give their names, relationships or the exact day of the photograph. Yevgeny Khaldei, 1945.
Provenance and sources for frame 4

Yevgeny Khaldei photographed this series in a park by the parliament building in Vienna in 1945. Colgate University Museums holds one print as object 1995.12.52, donated by the photographer. Individual file origins and rights are linked below each frame. Displayed file: 1024 × 677 pixels. Full image record in Russian.

russiainphoto.ruView image file

Another caption tells the story differently. A print from the photographer’s private archive was shown at a Moscow exhibition in the 1990s. Researcher Yelena Simens quotes the exhibition label: “Shepilov in the park by parliament: collective suicide of a Nazi family.” That describes a joint suicide, rather than one person murdering his relatives.

5. The scene from above

A vertical view shows where the bodies lay on the path and benches. Held by MAMM / MDF and dated only to 1945. Photograph by Yevgeny Khaldei.
A vertical view shows where the bodies lay on the path and benches. Held by MAMM / MDF and dated only to 1945. Photograph by Yevgeny Khaldei.
Provenance and sources for frame 5

Yevgeny Khaldei photographed this series in a park by the parliament building in Vienna in 1945. Colgate University Museums holds one print as object 1995.12.52, donated by the photographer. Individual file origins and rights are linked below each frame. Displayed file: 524 × 800 pixels. Full image record in Russian.

russiainphoto.ruView image file

The circumstances of these deaths cannot be reconstructed from the available archival records. Museum and agency catalogues neither name the dead nor cite a police file, suicide note or witness statement. Their ages, relationships, party affiliation and order of death are unknown. The story of a Nazi family survives in captions, but those records provide no documents to substantiate it.

6. A later colour version

Modern colourisation of Khaldei’s picture of Soviet officers beside three bodies. Neither colourist nor method is known; the colours are not verified as historical.
Modern colourisation of Khaldei’s picture of Soviet officers beside three bodies. Neither colourist nor method is known; the colours are not verified as historical.
Provenance and sources for frame 6

Yevgeny Khaldei photographed this series in a park by the parliament building in Vienna in 1945. Colgate University Museums holds one print as object 1995.12.52, donated by the photographer. Individual file origins and rights are linked below each frame. Displayed file: 960 × 652 pixels. This frame or variant is a colourisation; its method and credit are described in the source record. Full image record in Russian.

t.meView image file