Charles Thau

Born Chaim Thau on 7 July 1921 in the shtetl of Zabłotów in eastern Poland and raised in an agrarian Jewish family, his father, Mordechai, worked as a merchant peddler based at the family farm, and his mother, Esther, taught Yiddish, German, and Polish from their home, which also served as a small classroom. Thau had two younger brothers.^[8] Archival tax records list the Thau family among the higher tax-assessed households in Zabłotów, a market town in eastern Poland with roughly equal Jewish and Christian populations. This environment contributed to Thau's fluency in several languages. ^[9][10][a]

In September 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact,^[11] which led to the partition of Poland at the outset of World War II. Zabłotów then came under Soviet administration.^[12][13][14] During the Soviet occupation (1939–1941), local schools adopted Russian as a language of instruction, expanding Thau's linguistic knowledge beyond his existing proficiency in Polish, German, Yiddish, and Hebrew.^[10][15] Contemporaneous accounts note that while some residents initially viewed the Soviet presence as protective, full integration of eastern Poland into the Soviet system soon followed.^[16]

In June 1941, Nazi Germany violated the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact and invaded the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa.^[11] The Axis forces occupied Zabłotów in June 1941.^[17]

Atrocities against the Jewish population intensified during the latter half of 1941, as local collaborators participated in mass killings carried out by Einsatzgruppen units. ^[18][19] By the end of 1941, approximately 1,100 of Zabłotów's estimated 2,700 Jews had been executed.^[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.^[3][19] According to the survivor account "The Destruction of Our Community," besides Thau only five other Jewish residents of the town are known to have survived the war.^[3]

Following the German invasion in 1941, Thau fled into the Carpathian forests, where he survived for approximately 19 months.^[3]

Thau relied on foraging and survival methods documented among Jewish forest partisans in the region, including concealed dugouts (Zemlyanka) to endure winter conditions and avoid detection and capture.^[17][20][21]

He later linked up with another Jewish survivor, a childhood friend named Moshe, and worked together near the Romanian border.^[22][23] Retrospective reporting by Der Spiegel (2025) and The Forward (2025) states that on 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.^[23][24]

In mid-1943, when Red Army combatants discovered Thau in the woods, they suspected him of being a Nazi collaborator or Wehrmacht deserter, reflecting broader Red Army suspicion toward civilians emerging from occupied territories.^[25] His fluency in German initially aroused suspicion among Soviet troops.^[26] After Thau demonstrated fluency in Russian as well, he was integrated into their ranks as a translator.^[1] His language skills made him valuable in interrogations and liaison duties.^[27][28]

He was later field commissioned as a lieutenant during a period in which the Red Army faced significant shortages of junior officers.^[29] Thau assumed command of an anti-tank battery armed with four 76 mm divisional gun M1942 (ZiS-3) pieces, attached to the 58th Guards Rifle Division.^{[30][31][32] [b]}

During the Battle of Berlin, 76 mm divisional guns such as the ZiS-3 were frequently employed in direct-fire roles against fortified positions and strongpoints in urban combat, a practice documented in contemporary operational histories of the Soviet advance into the city.^[32]

Battle of Berlin

Nearing the final weeks of the war, the 58th Guards Rifle Division advanced toward Berlin and fought in street-to-street combat.^[33]

During the fighting in Berlin, Thau sustained a machine-gun wound to his jaw, one of several combat injuries he suffered during the war. A bullet slug from that wound remained unknowingly lodged in his cheek for over six years before being surgically removed after its discovery during a dental examination in Milwaukee in 1951.^[34][35]

In April 1945, as part of the 1st Ukrainian Front's westward advance in the south, Thau's 58th Guards Rifle Division reached the Elbe River on 25 April and participated in the Allied–Soviet link-up before shifting to final operations against Berlin.^[5]

U.S. forces advancing eastward were ordered to halt at the Elbe–Mulde line in anticipation of contact with Soviet forces. ^[5]

The meeting between elements of the 58th Guards Rifle Division and the 69th Infantry Division (United States) was one of several contacts that established the Allied–Soviet link-up in central Germany. ^[5]

Thau appears in the widely circulated staged re-enactment of the event, positioned in the center behind the handshake and looking directly into the camera.^[1] In the image, he appears to be dressed in a standard Red Army field uniform (gymnastyorka Model 1943) with a sidearm in a belt holster.^[36]

In the widely reproduced photograph, Thau is shown wearing Soviet military decorations, including what appears to be the Medal "For Courage" and the Medal "For Battle Merit". On his right chest, high-resolution reproductions of the image show wound stripes (ranenie stripes) on his right chest, consistent with Soviet regulations governing decorations for prior injuries.^[37]

Film from the camera that captured the handshake was transmitted to the Associated Press. One of the photographs appeared on the front page of The New York Times on 25 April 1945.^[38]

After the war, Thau returned briefly to Zabłotów. Upon learning that his immediate family had perished, he did not remain.^[39] He became a clandestine Bricha operative based in Austria and later immigrated to the United States, where he raised a family and became a business owner.^[40]

Bricha operative

After the war, Thau relocated to Salzburg, Austria, where he worked as an automobile mechanic and became involved in the underground Bricha network, which assisted Holocaust survivors and other displaced persons seeking to leave postwar Europe for British-administered Palestine.^{[41][6][7][42]}

Operating from the Salzburg region, including the displaced-persons camp at Saalfelden, Thau participated in logistical activities associated with refugee transport despite British immigration restrictions in Palestine.^[41][42] He helped coordinate movement routes across the Alps, facilitated border crossings, and assisted refugees traveling toward Mediterranean embarkation ports used for clandestine immigration voyages.^[43][42]

Historians note that Bricha activities in Austria were closely tied to the displaced-persons camp system established by Allied authorities, which concentrated large numbers of Jewish survivors in the American occupation zone.^[44][45] Camps in the Salzburg region, including Saalfelden, functioned as staging centers where refugee groups were assembled, transportation arranged, and temporary or forged travel documentation prepared for onward movement across Alpine transit corridors into northern Italy and onward to Mediterranean ports.^[46][47][48]

Photographs from the late 1940s depict members of Thau’s Bricha unit near Salzburg.^[41]

After resettling in Milwaukee, Chaim Thau adopted the name Charles Thau and resumed his trade as an auto mechanic, a skill he had practiced in postwar Salzburg. ^[4]

From the early 1950s through the 1990s, Thau owned and operated multiple service stations, eventually expanding to several Phillips 66–branded locations across the city. ^[51]

By 1955, Thau was already established as a gas station operator in Milwaukee.^[4][c] Independent records from the early 1960s list his business, Thau's 66 Service Station, at 433 South 6th Street.^[52] He later established Thau's Garage at 4229 West Greenfield Avenue and operated another Phillips 66 station on West Capitol Drive.^[53]

Thau often used his multilingual skills—Polish, Russian, Yiddish, German, and English—to assist newly arrived immigrants from Europe. His garages became gathering places for Milwaukee's post-war Jewish and European community, where he helped with translations, employment referrals, and introductions.^[35][40] Even as his business grew, Thau remained personally involved in daily operations and maintained close ties with his family and community.^[40]

• 
  Thau's Brake & Muffler Shop (Phillips 66), c. 1980s

Thau worked long hours while raising a family. He married Ida (née Faich); they had three children: Martin, Jeffrey, and Esther.^[35]

In 1951, during his first routine dental X-ray in Milwaukee, a slug fragment from his Berlin wound was discovered still lodged in his jaw and was surgically removed, six years after he was wounded. ^[34]

A family photograph from 1965 (left) shows Thau with his sons socializing in a Milwaukee home, and a photo from 1975 (right) shows him at his daughter's wedding, both taken during the period when he was operating and expanding his Phillips 66 service stations.^[54]

Charles Thau died on 2 April 1995, several weeks before the 50th anniversary of Elbe Day. ^[55]

Historians and journalists have frequently cited the Allied–Soviet meeting at the Elbe River on 25 April 1945 as a symbolic moment of cooperation between the Western Allies and the Soviet Union near the end of the war in Europe. The staged handshake photograph in which Thau appears became one of the most widely reproduced images of the link-up and has been referenced in diplomatic commemorations of Elbe Day. Scholars have interpreted the image as representing a brief moment of Allied unity before the onset of Cold War tensions between the former wartime partners.^[56][57][58]

In 1955, Thau discussed his wartime experiences in an interview with the Milwaukee Journal.^[4]

U.S. President George W. Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a joint declaration citing the Elbe meeting as a symbol of wartime cooperation between their nations.^[2] Similar references to the link-up were made during commemorations under Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, and by former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.^[59][60][61]

The scene depicted in the photograph is represented in a bas-relief sculpture at the National World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C., where the Elbe meeting is commemorated as a symbol of Allied cooperation.^[62]

The city of Torgau has held commemorative events acknowledging Thau's role in the photograph, attended by diplomatic representatives from Russia, the United States, and Germany.^[63]

Since Thau's passing, he was represented at multiple Elbe Day anniversary events by his youngest son, retired USAF colonel Jeff Thau.^[62]

• Jewish resistance in German-occupied Europe
• Jewish partisans