...that's what it was called, but really it was two pictures. Printed side-by-side, in black and white, they depicted an event, one which was probably repeated dozens if not hundereds of times during the war, that came to symbolize the descent of the German people in the eyes of the world to the lowest rung of bestiality.
It was taken just outside Warsaw in October 1944. The photographer was never identified, though it is often suspected it was a German soldier, as anyone else who could have been in a position to take the photo would surely have been killed for doing so. Krasnaya Zvezda published it on the front page, and extra copies were printed up so as many Red Army soldiers possible saw it. Within a week, it was published in Pravda and Izvestia, and became known throughout the Soviet Union.
After the war, a widely-circulated story said that when shown the photos, Joseph Stalin asked to be left alone and appeared to have been weeping when he emerged from his office twenty minutes later. Few believe the story, but the fact is, many people did cry when they saw the images. Roosevelt openly admited to having done so, as did many of even the most battle-hardened men on Earth...
Henry Morgenthau Jr. was said to have been especially repulsed. Some remarked on the similarity of the children in the photo to his own... in the first picture, at any rate.