Charles Thau: Difference between revisions

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* [[Battle of Berlin]]

* [[Battle of Berlin]]

awards =

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{{Ribbon devices

|ribbon1 = Medal For Courage USSR ribbon bar.svg

|ribbon2 = Medal For Battle Merit USSR ribbon bar.svg

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[[File:Medal For Courage USSR ribbon bar.svg|60px]] [[Medal “For Courage” (USSR)|Medal “For Courage”]] ({{lang|ru|Медаль «За отвагу»}})<ref name=”Courage1938″ /><br>

[[File:Medal For Battle Merit USSR ribbon bar.svg|60px]] [[Medal “For Battle Merit” (USSR)|Medal “For Battle Merit”]] ({{lang|ru|Медаль «За боевые заслуги»}})<ref name=”BattleMerit1938″ />

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<ref name=”Courage1938″>{{cite web

|title=Указ Президиума Верховного Совета СССР от 17 октября 1938 года «Об учреждении медали „За отвагу“»

|url=https://www.consultant.ru/document/cons_doc_LAW_55857/

|website=КонсультантПлюс

|language=ru

|access-date=7 October 2025

}}</ref>

<ref name=”BattleMerit1938″>{{cite web

|title=Указ Президиума Верховного Совета СССР от 17 октября 1938 года «Об учреждении медали „За боевые заслуги“»

|url=https://www.consultant.ru/document/cons_doc_LAW_55858/

|website=КонсультантПлюс

|language=ru

|access-date=7 October 2025

}}</ref>

| awards =

| awards =

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* {{lang|ru| [[Medal “For Battle Merit” (USSR)|Medal “For Battle Merit”]]}}<ref name=”BattleMerit1938″ />

* {{lang|ru| [[Medal “For Battle Merit” (USSR)|Medal “For Battle Merit”]]}}<ref name=”BattleMerit1938″ />

Polish-born Jewish partisan and Red Army officer featured in an iconic World War II photograph

Charles “Charlie” Thau (born Chaim Thau; July 7, 1921 – April 2, 1995) was a Polish-born Jewish Holocaust survivor, resistance fighter, Red Army translator/officer, post-WW2 Bricha operative, and American immigrant. He is best known for appearing in a widely published photograph of the historic meeting between American and Soviet troops at the Elbe River in April 1945, near the end of World War II.^[4][5][6]

Born in Zabłotów, Poland (now Zabolotiv, Ukraine), Thau evaded Nazi persecution in 1941 and survived for nearly two years as a Jewish partisan. He later joined the Red Army as a translator and subsequently as an officer in the 58th Guards Rifle Division, participating in the link-up with U.S. forces near Torgau, Germany—an encounter later commemorated as Elbe Day.^[8]

Following the war, Thau became an operative in the clandestine Bricha organization, assisting in the migration of Jewish survivors from displaced persons camps toward Palestine. He later immigrated to the United States, where he owned and operated several automotive businesses in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Thau’s wartime service and postwar humanitarian activities have been recognized in historical and journalistic accounts in both Europe and the United States.^[5]

Early life and education

Thau was born in the shtetl of Zabłotów in eastern Poland in 1921 and was raised in an agrarian Jewish family. His father, Mordechai, worked the family farm, and his mother, Esther, taught Yiddish, German, and Polish from their home, which doubled as a schoolroom. Thau had two younger brothers.

In September 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact^[11], partitioning Poland at the outset of the war. Zabłotów then came under Soviet administration.^[12]

During the Soviet occupation (1939–1941), local schools adopted Russian as a language of instruction, expanding Thau’s proficiency to include Russian in addition to Polish, German, Yiddish, and Hebrew.

Contemporaneous accounts note that while some residents initially viewed the Soviet presence as protective, integration of eastern Poland into the Soviet system followed. ^{[5][14][15][16][17]}

Nazi invasion and persecution

In June 1941, Nazi Germany violated the Hitler–Stalin Pact and invaded the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa.^[11] German forces reached Zabłotów by December 1941.^[15] The Einsatzgruppen and local collaborators carried out mass killings of the town’s Jewish population.^[18] By the end of 1941, approximately 1,100 of Zabłotów’s estimated 2,700 Jews had been executed.^[15][19]

Most of the remaining Jewish residents were deported to extermination camps. Thau’s father, mother, and two younger brothers — Mordechai, Esther, Barrish, and Hershel — did not survive.

According to the survivor account “Destruction of Our Community,” authored by two members of the Jewish community, besides Thau only five other Jewish residents of the town are known to have survived the war.^[15]

Hiding and partisan activity

Thau escaped into the nearby Carpathian forests on the Eastern Front (World War II), where he remained in hiding for approximately 19 months. He survived by foraging, in a manner described for other partisans,^[20] and by occasionally sheltering in barns. For most of this period, he used the terrain to prepare camouflaged foxholes and dugouts (zemlyankas, землянка), concealed with foliage and earth to endure the winters and avoid detection.^[22] He later linked up with another Jewish survivor, a childhood friend, and formed a small partisan group near the Romanian border.^[23]

Contemporary reports in Der Spiegel and The Forward (April 2025) state that on at least one occasion Thau disguised himself as a Wehrmacht officer, using his fluency in German and a procured uniform to enter a nearby city to obtain food and medical treatment. ^[5]

Introduction to Red Army service

In mid-1943, when Red Army combatants discovered Thau in the woods, they initially suspected Thau of being a Nazi collaborator—possibly a Wehrmacht deserter—due to his fluent German.^[25] After hearing how fluent Thau was as well in spoken Russian, they eventually integrated him initially into their ranks as a translator.^[5][27]

Subsequently, in addition to his duties as a translator, Thau was commissioned as a lieutenant and assumed command of an anti-tank battery armed with four 76 mm divisional gun M1942 (ZiS-3) divisional guns, attached to the 58th Guards Rifle Division of the 1st Ukrainian Front.^[29]

This was among the first Red Army units to encounter Western Allied forces, specifically the 69th Infantry Division (United States), at the Elbe River on 24 April 1945.^[6]

Elbe River link-up (April 1945)

On 24 April 1945, elements of the 58th Guards Rifle Division made contact with the 69th Infantry Division (United States) at the Elbe River near Torgau, Germany.^[6][30] The meeting symbolized the historic operational link-up between Eastern and Western Allied forces.

Thau was photographed during the encounter, positioned in the center behind the handshake, the one looking directly into the cameraa. ^[33]

The photograph shows Thau in a standard Red Army field uniform (gymnastyorka) Model 1943, indicating he was not a tanker (who wore black padded jackets and leather helmets). Thau also wears a pistol holster on his right hip, consistent with personnel in command or liaison roles.^{[35] [36] [37] [38]}

On Thau’s left chest is the Medal “For Courage” (Russia), the brighter, silver finish worn outward. The other medal on Thau’s left chest medal is the Medal “For Battle Merit”, also silver but with a darker tone, worn inward, and is typically awarded for combat effectiveness, leadership, or distinguished service. Both decorations were instituted by decrees of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet on 17 October 1938.^[1][2]

Film from the camera that captured the handshake was sent to the Associated Press. The first of two snapshots appeared on the front page of The New York Times on 25 April 1945.^[4][39]

Battle of Berlin

After the Elbe link-up, the 69th Infantry Division was ordered to hold at the river. The 58th Guards Rifle Division advanced toward Berlin and participated in street-to-street combat in the final weeks of the war.^[40] Thau sustained a machine-gun wound to his cheek, his second combat injury of the war. A bullet slug from that wound remained in place for more than six years and was surgically removed in Milwaukee in 1952. ^[4][5]

Postwar activities

After the war, Thau returned briefly to Zabłotów. Upon learning that his immediate family had perished, he did not remain. He became involved in Bricha operations and later immigrated to the United States, where he raised a family and became a business owner.

Bricha operative

Thau relocated to Salzburg, Austria, where he worked as an automobile mechanic while participating in the underground Bricha network. Bricha assisted Holocaust survivors and other displaced refugees to leave Central and Eastern Europe for British-administered Palestine (pre-state Israel).^[46] From Camp Saalfelden near Salzburg, Thau and colleagues facilitated transport, clandestine border crossings, document forgeries, and cross-country movement with refugees across the Alps. ^[47] Refugees subsequently travelled by ferry to bypass British controls and enter Mandatory Palestine.^[46]

Immigration and business career

Following these experiences, Thau sought immigration to the United States. With assistance from the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee at Camp Saalfelden, he secured a sponsor, attorney David Rabinowitz of Sheboygan, Wisconsin.

He arrived in New York on 7 September 1951 aboard the USS General M. B. Stewart,
then travelled to Sheboygan and later settled in Milwaukee.^[50][51]

He adopted the name Charles Thau, worked as an auto mechanic, and later owned multiple automotive garages in Milwaukee. During a routine dental X-ray in Milwaukee, a slug fragment from his Berlin wound, retained since 1945, was discovered and removed in 1952. Thau married Ida (née Faich); they had three children: Martin, Jeffrey, and Esther.

Legacy and recognition

In 1955, Thau recounted his wartime experiences — including the Elbe link-up and his combat injury — in an interview with the Milwaukee Journal.

Recognition of Elbe Day, in which Thau figured prominently in contemporary imagery, increased in later decades, including official U.S.–Russian commemorations. Post-Cold War anniversaries featured joint statements by national leaders, such as a 2005 declaration by U.S. President George W. Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin reaffirming Elbe Day as a symbol of wartime cooperation.^[53] Additional acknowledgments by leaders including President Bill Clinton, President Barack Obama, and Mikhail Gorbachev contributed to renewed public interest in the event and its participants.^[54][55][56] The Elbe Day image served as the basis for one of the bas-relief sculptures at the National World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C.

In recent decades, commemorations in Germany have specifically noted Thau’s role in the Elbe meeting. His youngest son, Colonel Jeffrey Thau, USAF (retired), has participated in several ceremonies at the Elbe near Torgau.

Charles Thau died on 2 April 1995, a few weeks before the 50th anniversary of Elbe Day.^[58]

See also

References

Bibliography

External links