Charles Thau

Charles Thau
A black and white photograph depicting a Soviet officer (center) looking at the camera, positioned behind two soldiers, one Soviet and one American, shaking hands on a damaged bridge structure.
Chaim (Charles) Thau (center) during the staged Elbe link-up photograph, 26 April 1945
Born
Chaim Thau

(1921-07-07)7 July 1921
Zabłotów, Poland
Died2 April 1995(1995-04-02) (aged 73)
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, U.S.
Military career
AllegianceSoviet Union
Branch
Red Army
Service years
1942–1945
Rank
Lieutenant
Units56th Guards Rifle Regiment, 58th Guards Rifle Division
Conflicts
Awards
Other workResistance activities; Bricha operative; US businessman

Charles Thau (born Chaim Thau; 7 July 1921 – 2 April 1995) was a Polish-born Jewish resistance member and Red Army soldier during World War II, who later participated in the Israeli War of Independence. He served in the Red Army as a translator and later as a front-line soldier and was photographed at the American-Soviet link-up at Torgau in April 1945, an event commemorated annually as Elbe Day.

Born in Zabłotów, Poland, Thau survived the Holocaust by fleeing into the Carpathian forests after the Nazi Germany invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. Thau engaged in partisan resistance before later serving in the Red Army where he was wounded multiple times in combat, including during the Battle of Berlin, and received the Medal "For Courage".

After the war, Thau was active in the Bricha movement in Austria, assisting Jewish displaced persons seeking to leave Europe. In 1948, he participated in the Israeli War of Independence. He subsequently resided in Israel for approximately two years before immigrating to the United States in 1951. He settled in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he raised a family, became a businessman, and owned several automobile repair garages.

His appearance in the widely reproduced 1945 photograph provides a visual link between his experience as a Jewish survivor and Soviet soldier and the Allied-Soviet cooperation at the close of World War II.

Early life and education

Born Chaim Thau on 7 July 1921 in the shtetl of Zabłotów (present-day Zabolotiv, Ukraine) in eastern Poland, he grew up in an agrarian Jewish family. His father, Mordechai, was a merchant peddler operating from the family farm, while his mother, Esther, taught Yiddish, German, and Polish from their home, which also functioned as a small classroom. He had two younger brothers.

Zabłotów was a market town with roughly equal Jewish and Christian populations. Archival tax records place the Thau family among the more highly assessed households. In this multilingual environment, he became proficient in several languages.

Historical map showing the German–Soviet boundary in occupied Poland, signed by Joseph Stalin and Joachim von Ribbentrop.
The German–Soviet boundary in occupied Poland, established by the German–Soviet Boundary and Friendship Treaty of 28 September 1939; the map bears the signatures of Joseph Stalin and Joachim von Ribbentrop. Zablotow (Thau's village) was located north of the Romanian border, on the river labeled Pruth, slightly under the letter R in Ribbentrop's signature above.
Black and white photo of a Soviet soldier talking to civilians in a village setting
Residents speak with a Red Army soldier, 1939

On 23 August 1939, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, whose secret protocol defined their respective spheres of interest in Eastern Europe. Germany invaded Poland on 1 September, followed by the Soviet invasion from the east on 17 September. On 28 September, Germany and the Soviet Union signed the German–Soviet Boundary and Friendship Treaty, establishing a revised boundary through occupied Polish territory. Zabłotów fell within the Soviet zone.

The Soviet occupation brought changes to local administration, education, and public life. Russian was subsequently mandated as the language of instruction in local schools. With Soviet soldiers stationed in Zabłotów and through his interactions with them, Thau learned Russian, adding it to his existing knowledge of Polish, German, Yiddish, and Hebrew.

Contemporary accounts indicate that some residents initially welcomed the Soviets and perceived their presence as protective, but the region was soon incorporated into the Soviet system.

This environment of cultural diversity and relative stability would be abruptly shattered with the German invasion in 1941.

Nazi invasion and persecution

In June 1941, Nazi Germany violated the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact by invading the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa. German and Hungarian forces occupied Zabłotów in early July 1941.

Persecution of the Jewish population intensified thereafter. In the latter half of 1941, German security forces and local collaborators helped carry out mass shootings as part of Einsatzgruppen operations. By the end of the year, approximately 1,100 of the town's roughly 2,700 Jewish residents had been killed.

Black and white photo of people being loaded onto trucks under military supervision.
Jews transported, 1941–1942, Zabłotów area

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

Hiding and partisan activity

With the destruction of his community underway, Thau's flight into the forests marked the beginning of a prolonged struggle for survival. His survival represents an anomaly in the broader history of the Holocaust, as only a small fraction of Jewish citizens in the region successfully escaped into the forests or integrated into active partisan formations.

In the forests, the ability to survive involved foraging, acquiring food from nearby farms, and using concealed dugouts (Zemlyanka) to endure winter conditions and avoid detection.

Thau survived in forested areas near the Romanian border

Thau later linked up with a childhood friend, another Jewish survivor, and the two operated together near the Romanian border.

According to Der Spiegel (2025) and The Forward (2025), Thau at times disguised himself as a Wehrmacht officer, using his fluency in German and procured uniforms to enter nearby towns in order to obtain food and medical care. Similar use of disguise has been documented among other partisan groups in comparable conditions.

Red Army service

Thau spent approximately 19 months hiding in the forests. He was discovered by Soviet-aligned combatants operating behind German lines, and was initially suspected of being a Nazi collaborator or Wehrmacht deserter, reflecting broader Red Army suspicion of civilians emerging from occupied territories. His fluency in German contributed to this suspicion. After demonstrating Russian proficiency as well, the suspicions were eased. Archival Red Army records indicate Thau was conscripted into the Red Army by the Strupinetsky District Military Commissariat of Stanislav Oblast. His language skills were subsequently used for military interrogations and liaison duties.

During the Red Army's westward advance in 1944 and 1945, archival records identify Thau as a Guards sergeant serving as a rifleman in the 56th Guards Rifle Regiment of the 58th Guards Rifle Division.

On 15 January 1945, Thau was wounded during offensive operations in Poland near a position identified in Soviet records as "Height 55.2."

Russian archival letter indicating Thau was wounded on 15 Jan 1945

According to the regimental award citation, after another machine-gun crew was taken out of action by enemy fire, Thau assumed operation of their heavy mounted weapon and opened sustained defensive counter fire against advancing German infantry, thereby enabling the continued advance of Soviet infantry. He was awarded the Medal "For Courage" by regimental order dated 20 January 1945.

Russian archival excerpt documenting Thau’s Medal ‘For Bravery’ award

Less than a month later, Soviet medical records identify Thau as a crew commander in the 56th Guards Rifle Regiment. On 9 February 1945, he sustained a through-and-through gunshot wound to the right iliac region and was medically evacuated. He returned to frontline service 20 February 1945.

Russian medical archival extract – Thau was wounded on 9 February 1945 in the right abdomen evidenced by a pass-through gunshot, then released less than two weeks later back to front lines.

As casualties among junior officers mounted, experienced enlisted soldiers were promoted. In this context, and for Thau specifically, a later account states that Thau was promoted in the field to lieutenant and assumed command of an anti-tank battery equipped with 76 mm divisional guns within the 58th Guards Rifle Division.

In April 1945, his division reached the Elbe River and took part in the Allied–Soviet link-up at Torgau before advancing toward Berlin. He was later wounded during street fighting in the Battle of Berlin. A bullet fragment remained lodged in his cheek until it was discovered and removed by a dentist in Milwaukee in 1951.

By April 1945, Allied operational plans called for US forces advancing eastward to halt along the Elbe–Mulde line in preparation for contact with advancing Soviet formations, culminating in the link-up commemorated annually as Elbe Day. The meeting between elements of the 58th Guards Rifle Division and the US 69th Infantry Division was one of several contacts establishing the Allied–Soviet link-up in central Germany.

Black and white photo of a Soviet officer standing center-frame behind a handshake between a US and Soviet soldier on a wrecked bridge.
Thau (center) behind the handshake, staged 26 April 1945

Thau appears in the reproduced photograph of the Allied–Soviet link-up, positioned at the center behind the handshake, looking directly into the camera. In the image, Thau is depicted wearing a standard Red Army field uniform (gymnastyorka Model 1943) with a sidearm carried in a belt holster. He is also shown wearing Soviet military decorations, including the Medal "For Courage" and the Medal "For Battle Merit". High-resolution reproductions show wound stripes (ranenie stripes) on his right chest, indicating injuries sustained prior to late April 1945.

Film from the camera was transmitted to the Associated Press, and was subsequently distributed and reproduced as headlines in newspapers. Later research on the event led to the correction of a long-standing misidentification of one of the American soldiers in the photograph.

Postwar activities

After World War II, Thau returned to Zabłotów to search for his relatives. Finding no survivors among his immediate or extended family, he departed the region and relocated to Salzburg, Austria within the American occupation zone. There, he worked as an automobile mechanic while becoming an active operative in the clandestine Bricha network—an underground effort that facilitated the transit of Jewish Holocaust survivors out of post-war Europe.

Bricha operative

Operating from the Salzburg region, including the displaced-persons camp at Saalfelden, Thau was involved in logistical operations supporting the movement of Jewish refugees across postwar Europe despite British immigration restrictions. His multilingual fluency and familiarity with regional geography significantly enhanced the efficacy of these clandestine transit routes despite restrictive British immigration policies.

Thau supported routes from Austria over the Alps to Mediterranean ports, 1946–1947

Bricha operations in Austria were closely connected to the displaced-persons camp system established by Allied authorities, which concentrated large numbers of Jewish survivors in the American occupation zone. Camps in the Salzburg region, including Camp Saalfelden, functioned as staging centers where refugee groups were assembled, transportation arranged, and documentation prepared for movement across Alpine transit corridors into Italy and onward to Mediterranean ports.

Bricha unit at Camp Saalfelden, Austria, c. 1947–1948. See top row, third from right labeled “Chaim”

A contemporary photo collage from the late 1940s identifies Thau within the dedicated Bricha unit at Camp Saalfelden.

In 1948, following the dissolution of the Bricha network, Thau participated in the Israeli War of Independence. He subsequently remained in Israel for approximately two years before a Jewish immigration agency sponsored his move to the United States in 1951.

Immigration

As Thau recalled what soldiers of the 69th Infantry Division had told him at the Elbe link-up about life in America, Thau sought help to immigrate to the USA from the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee back at Camp Saalfelden. They assisted him in securing a sponsor, as prospective immigrants were required to have one. Attorney David Rabinowitz of Sheboygan, Wisconsin was identified as his sponsor.

Thau arrived in New York on 7 September 1951 aboard the USS General M. B. Stewart, then traveled to Sheboygan and later settled in Milwaukee.

Business career

After years shaped by war and displacement, Thau established a stable civilian life resettling in Milwaukee. Thau anglicized his name to Charles Thau and resumed work as an auto mechanic, a trade he had practiced in postwar Salzburg.

Thau (right) with assistant Glenn Retzlaff in the garage, c. late 1960s

From the early 1950s to the 1990s, he owned and operated multiple service stations, including several Phillips 66–branded locations in Milwaukee.

Thau's Phillips 66 Garage on Capital Drive, c. 1970s

Independent records from the early 1960s list his business at 433 South 6th Street. He later operated additional locations on West Greenfield Avenue and on Capital Drive.

Thau's Brake & Muffler Shop at 43rd and Greenfield, c. 1980s

Thau used his multilingual abilities in Polish, Russian, Yiddish, German, and English to assist newly arrived immigrants from Europe. His garages served as gathering places for Milwaukee's postwar Jewish and European community, where he helped with translations, employment referrals, and introductions. As Thau's multiple Phillips 66 service stations grew across Milwaukee over several decades, he became an established local businessman. During this period Thau remained personally involved in daily operations and maintained close ties with his family and community.

Personal life

Thau and daughter Esther at her wedding, June 1975

Thau married Ida, a first generation American of Russian descent, and they had three children: Martin, Jeffrey, and Esther.

Thau (right) with his sons Jeff (center) and Martin (left), March 1965

In 1951, during a routine dental X-ray in Milwaukee, a bullet fragment from his wartime injury in Berlin was discovered still lodged in his jaw and was surgically removed.

Photographs from the 1960s and 1970s document his family life during the period he operated his businesses in Milwaukee. Charles Thau died on 2 April 1995, several weeks before the 50th anniversary of Elbe Day.

Legacy

Thau's life encompassed Holocaust survival, Jewish partisan resistance, decorated Red Army service, postwar Bricha activities, and eventual resettlement and business life in the United States. His wartime experiences were documented in a 1955 interview with the Milwaukee Journal.

His appearance in Allan Jackson's widely reproduced photograph of the American-Soviet link-up at Torgau provides a lasting visual record of his wartime service. The photograph became an enduring symbol of cooperation between American and Soviet forces in the final weeks of World War II. Thau is noted by the city of Torgau each Elbe Day, along with other known soldiers in the photo.

Since his passing, Thau’s youngest son, USAF Colonel Jeff Thau, has represented his father at Torgau’s Elbe Day ceremonies. A bas-relief at the National World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C. depicts the linkup.

As later historical accounts noted, the photograph also came to hold particular significance in narratives of Jewish survival on both sides of the bridge. That is, in a striking convergence of circumstance, Thau, a Jewish survivor serving with the Red Army, appears at one end of the bridge, while Bernard E. Kirschenbaum, also Jewish, appears at the other. Their presence in the photograph represents two Jewish survivors who reached the same historic link-up from opposite sides of the bridge.

Thau's appearance in the photograph, together with his documented wartime and postwar activities, has preserved his place in the historical record of both the Elbe link-up and the experiences of Jewish survivors of World War II.

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ During the interwar years, Zabłotów's Tuesday markets connected surrounding agrarian communities with Jewish merchants and craftsmen. The town's population was multilingual, speaking Polish, Yiddish, Ukrainian, and German, reflecting the region’s diverse demographics.
  2. ↑ Following the Soviet retreat, Zabłotów fell within the Hungarian occupation zone administered by the Hungarian Carpathian Group (Kárpát Csoport). German security elements, including personnel from Einsatzgruppe, operated in the area shortly thereafter.
  3. ↑ Conscription date discrepancy: Russian archival documentation records that Thau was "conscripted" (призван) on 10 July 1942 by the Strupinetsky District Military Commissariat of Stanislav Oblast. However, regular Red Army forces did not liberate the Zabolotiv area until 30 March 1944. According to Thau's longstanding family accounts, he spent approximately 19 months in hiding in the forests before linking up with Soviet-aligned combatants behind enemy lines. It remains unresolved how the 10 July 1942 entry relates to Thau’s reported contact with Soviet-aligned combatants behind German lines or whether it was recorded retrospectively by Soviet military authorities.
  4. ↑ An archival cover letter incorrectly identifies Thau as having served in the 19th Guards Rifle Division. However, the contemporaneous regimental award order (No. 01) and accompanying service records identify him as a Guards sergeant in the 56th Guards Rifle Regiment of the 58th Guards Rifle Division.
  5. ↑ The location identified in Soviet records as "Height 55.2" corresponds to a numbered elevation used for tactical reference on Red Army operational maps. Combat accounts of the 58th Guards Rifle Division (part of the 5th Guards Army) place the unit in mid-January 1945 in the Stopnica–Nida River sector during the opening phase of the Sandomierz–Silesian Offensive. Contemporary military analyses describe this phase as characterized by heavily fortified German positions on elevated terrain that were reduced through concentrated artillery and infantry assaults.

    See also: D. Sims and A. Schilling, "Breakout from the Sandomierz Bridgehead," Field Artillery (October 1990), pp. 20–24; V. N. Kiselyov, "Sandomirsko-Silezskaya operatsiya 1945," in S. Ivanov (ed.), Voyennyy entsiklopediya, vol. 7 (Moscow: Voenizdat, 2003), pp. 373–374.
  6. ↑ The photograph was taken during a formal, press-arranged meeting staged for photographers after the initial contact between US and Soviet patrols earlier on 25 April 1945.
  7. ↑ Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR No. 213 (14 July 1942): "On the establishment of insignia for military personnel of the Red Army wounded in battles."
  8. ↑ The stripes are distinct from the wound he received during the subsequent Battle of Berlin.
  9. ↑ The earliest site of Thau's garage was located at 59th and Lisbon

References

  1. 1 2 Getty 2014, editorial description.
  2. ↑ Itskovich 2025.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 Haynie 2025, para. 21.
  4. 1 2 3 4 Milwaukee Journal 1955, p. 193.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Kahan 2017.
  6. ↑ State Archive of Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast 1939.
  7. 1 2 Haynie 2025, para. 6.
  8. 1 2 Jewish Galicia and Bukovina n.d.
  9. ↑ YIVO n.d.
  10. 1 2 Brecher & Wilkenfeld 1997, p. 255.
  11. ↑ Radio Free Europe 2008.
  12. ↑ Lviv Center n.d.
  13. ↑ Der Spiegel 2025, Daily normalization of life in the "Kresy".
  14. ↑ Wilms 2015.
  15. ↑ Gross 2002, pp. 24–33.
  16. ↑ Gross 2002, pp. 71–113.
  17. ↑ Snyder 2010, pp. 116–118.
  18. ↑ Snyder 2010, pp. 125–130.
  19. 1 2 3 Browning 2004.
  20. ↑ Brandon & Lower 2008, p. 78.
  21. ↑ HL 1941.
  22. 1 2 3 4 Yad Vashem n.d.
  23. 1 2 Haynie 2025, para. 7.
  24. ↑ Milwaukee Journal 1955, p. 193, para. 21.
  25. 1 2 3 4 Heinz & Harmann 2025.
  26. 1 2 3 4 Haynie 2025, para. 8.
  27. ↑ Tec 1993, pp. 160–165.
  28. ↑ Levine 2010, p. 44.
  29. ↑ Slepyan 2006, pp. 102–104, 201.
  30. ↑ USHMM n.d., Partisans in the Forest.
  31. 1 2 Itskovich 2025, para. 9.
  32. 1 2 Haynie 2025, para. 9.
  33. ↑ Merridale 2006, pp. 164–166.
  34. 1 2 TsAMO 2025a.
  35. ↑ Reese 2011, pp. 208–210.
  36. 1 2 Wilms 2015, para. 4.
  37. 1 2 3 TsAMO 1945a.
  38. ↑ TsAMO 2025b.
  39. ↑ TsAMO 1945b.
  40. ↑ Glantz 1995, pp. 285–309.
  41. ↑ Ziemke 1975, pp. 300–302.
  42. ↑ Milwaukee Journal 1955, p. 193, para. 8.
  43. ↑ Ziemke 1975, pp. 287–302.
  44. 1 2 3 Wilms 2015, para. 22.
  45. ↑ MacDonald 1973, p. 456.
  46. ↑ Ziemke 1975, pp. 287–289.
  47. ↑ Haynie 2025, para. 20.
  48. ↑ Central Intelligence Agency 1955, p. 32.
  49. ↑ Wilms 2015, para. 10.
  50. 1 2 3 Haynie 2025.
  51. ↑ Wilms 2015, para. 21.
  52. ↑ Nehari 2015, para. 4.
  53. ↑ Ofer 1990, p. 295.
  54. ↑ Bauer 1970, pp. 93–118.
  55. 1 2 Nehari 2015, para. 5.
  56. ↑ Lavsky 2002, pp. 186–190.
  57. ↑ Bauer 1970, pp. 93–98.
  58. ↑ Bauer 1970, pp. 102–108.
  59. ↑ Ofer 1990, pp. 293–296.
  60. ↑ Lavsky 2002, pp. 190–194.
  61. ↑ Milwaukee Journal 1955, p. 193, para. 31.
  62. ↑ US Immigration and Naturalization Service 1951, passenger no. 10.
  63. ↑ Milwaukee Journal 1955, p. 193, para. 32.
  64. 1 2 The Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle 1995, p. 22.
  65. ↑ Milwaukee Sentinel 1961.
  66. ↑ Milwaukee Journal 1991, p. 70.
  67. 1 2 Haynie 2025, para. 24.
  68. ↑ Milwaukee Journal 1955, p. 193, para. 18.
  69. ↑ Wilms 2015, para. 23.
  70. ↑ White House Archives 2005.
  71. ↑ White House Archives 2010.

Bibliography