About
“Last Veteran of WWII Battle Group Marching Alone in Victory Day Parade” refers to a photo of a man with medals on his chest walking in a Parade. The photo was frequently posted on social media, often with the caption claiming he was the last member of his Battle group to be in the parade.
Origin
The original photo was taken by Nevsky Prospekt during the 2007 St Petersburg Victory Day Parade [1]. Although Nevsky Prospekt took the photo, he did not know the identity of the man in the image. It is possible that the man in question was not actually a veteran, and may have been a family member, or close friend of a person who was.
Spread
The photo had spread on Russian Social Media for years [1] before the image became popular with Non Russian Audiences.
On May 8th 2013, the photograph was uploaded to the Reddit board /r/pics , and gained 2,862 votes before being archived.[2] The photo was posted again on May 9th 2015, gaining 4550 votes before being archived.[3]
On April 1st 2016, the Facebook page for HypeDojo posted a captioned version of the image reading: “Last Veteran of his WWII battle group marching alone in victory day parade. How many people will ‘Share’ this hero” [4] Within a month this post gained over 800,000 shares.
Many people from different parts of the world interpreted this photo as representing a veteran from their country[1][5] despite having Russian medals on the man’s chest. The BBC was later able to track down the photographer and verify that the image was taken in St Petrsburg [1][5]
Search Interest
External References
[1]BBC– The mystery veteran who won the internet’s heart
[2]Reddit – Emotional WWII veteran at a Victory Day parade in Russia. I found this photo really moving. Taken by: Aleksandr Petrosyan
[3]Reddit – Emotional WWII veteran at a Victory Day parade in Russia
[5]SoundCloud – The World- The unidentified World War II veteran who’s become an internet meme’