Charles "Charlie" Thau | |
|---|---|
 Lt. Chaim (Charles) Thau (center) meeting U.S. forces at the Elbe River, 25 April 1945 | |
| Birth name | Chaim Thau |
| Born | |
| Died | (1995-04-02)April 2, 1995 Milwaukee, Wisconsin, U.S. |
| Allegiance |  Soviet Union |
| Branch | Red Army (1st Ukrainian Front) |
| Years of service | 1943–1945 |
| Rank | Junior Lieutenant (лейтенант) |
| Unit | 58th Guards Rifle Division |
| Battles / wars | |
| Awards | |
| Other work | Jewish partisan;Bricha operative; U.S. businessman |
Charles "Charlie" Thau (bornChaim Thau; 7 July 1921 – 2 April 1995) was a Polish-born Jewish Holocaust survivor, partisan fighter, and Red Army officer who later became an American businessman.[1][2][3] He is best known for appearing at the center of an iconic photograph capturing the April 25, 1945 meeting between U.S. and Soviet troops at the Elbe River near Torgau, Germany.[4][5]
Born in the shtetl of Zabłotów (now Zabolotiv, Ukraine), Thau grew up in an agrarian Jewish family and became proficient in multiple languages. When Germany invaded in 1941 and his hometown came under Nazi control, his immediate family was killed and he spent nearly two years hiding in the Carpathian forests. He later joined the Red Army as a translator, was commissioned a junior lieutenant with the 58th Guards Rifle Division; he participated in both the Elbe link-up and the Battle of Berlin, where he suffered combat injuries.
After World War II, Thau joined the clandestine Bricha movement in Austria, assisting Jewish survivors in relocating from displaced-persons camps to Palestine.[6][7] He immigrated to the United States in 1951, settled in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and operated several Phillips 66 service stations under his own name, becoming a respected local businessman.[8]
Thau’s wartime experience, particularly his appearance in the Elbe meeting, has been commemorated in studies of Elbe Day and in U.S.–Russian diplomatic observances. He died in Milwaukee weeks before the 50th anniversary of the Elbe link-up in 1995.[9]
Thau was born in theshtetl ofZabłotów 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 also served as a small classroom. Thau had two younger brothers.[10] Growing up in Zabłotów, a market town in Eastern Poland with roughly equal Jewish and Christian populations, he became fluent in several languages—an ability that later aided him in his Red Army service and postwar career.[note 1]
In September 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union signed theMolotov–Ribbentrop Pact,[11] partitioning Poland at the outset of the war. 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.[15][16]
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.[17]
In June 1941, Nazi Germany violated theHitler–Stalin Pact and invaded the Soviet Union inOperation Barbarossa.[11] German forces reached Zabłotów by December 1941.[18] TheEinsatzgruppen and local collaborators carried out mass killings of the town’s Jewish population.[19][20] By the end of 1941, approximately 1,100 of Zabłotów’s estimated 2,700 Jews had been executed.[20]
Most of the remaining Jewish residents were deported toextermination camps. Thau’s father, mother, and two younger brothers —Mordechai, Esther, Barrish, and Hershel — did not survive.
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.[1][18][21]
Thau escaped into the nearbyCarpathian forests on theEastern Front (World War II), where he hid for about 19 months. He survived by foraging, as described for other partisans,[22] and by occasionally sheltering in barns. For most of this period, he used the terrain to prepare camouflaged foxholes anddugouts (zemlyankas, землянка), concealed with foliage and earth to endure the winters and avoid detection.[23] He later linked up with another Jewish survivor, a childhood friend, and formed a small partisan group near the Romanian border.[23]
Despite the extreme hardships of living off the land, Thau and his small group gradually engaged in increasingly daring operations to survive and resist the occupying forces.
Contemporary reports inDer Spiegel andThe Forward (2025) state that on at least one occasion Thau disguised himself as aWehrmacht officer, using his fluency in German and a procured uniform to enter a nearby city to obtain food and medical treatment.[24][23]
In mid-1943, when Red Army combatants discovered Thau in the woods, they initially suspected him of being a Nazi collaborator—possibly aWehrmacht deserter—because of his fluent German.[25] After he demonstrated fluency in Russian as well, he was integrated into their ranks as a translator.[2] His language skills made him valuable in interrogations and liaison duties between units of the 1st Ukrainian Front.[26]
Subsequently, he was commissioned as a junior lieutenant and assumed command of an anti-tank battery armed with four76 mm divisional gun M1942 (ZiS-3) pieces, attached to the58th Guards Rifle Division of the 1st Ukrainian Front.[27] This unit was among the first Red Army formations to encounter Western Allied forces, specifically the69th Infantry Division (United States), at the Elbe River on 24 April 1945.[5]
On 24 April 1945, elements of the 58th Guards Rifle Division made contact with the 69th Infantry Division at the Elbe River nearTorgau, Germany.[4][5] The meeting symbolized the operational link-up between Eastern and Western Allied forces.
Thau was photographed during the encounter—positioned in the center behind the handshake, looking directly into the camera.[2]
The image shows Thau in a standard Red Army field uniform (gymnastyorka Model 1943), indicating he was not a tanker (who conversely wore black padded jackets and leather helmets). He carries a pistol holster on his right hip, consistent with liaison or command roles.[28]
Thau is also wearing Soviet military decorations. On his left chest, theMedal "For Courage" (Russia) is worn in the position of higher precedence and outermost among the decorations. Adjacent to it is theMedal "For Battle Merit" of lower relative hierarchy, and typically awarded for combat effectiveness, leadership, or distinguished service. Both were established by decrees of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet on 17 October 1938.[29][30]
Film from the camera that photographically captured the handshake was transmitted to the Associated Press. One of the photographs appeared on the front page ofThe New York Times on 25 April 1945.[4]
Beginning in the early 1990s—while Thau was still living—a case of mistaken identity arose concerning one of the American soldiers in the famous Elbe River “handshake” photograph. The controversy centered on the tallest American serviceman standing within the left group of U.S. soldiers, who for years was incorrectly identified as Delbert “Del” Philpott of the 69th Infantry Division.[31][5]
For more than a decade, published accounts, interviews, and even official commemorations—including a joint U.S.–Russian ceremony in 2005—continued to repeat the misidentification.[32][5] A 2005 issue of the 69th Infantry Division Bulletin listed Philpott among the Moscow delegation, confirming that the misidentification persisted through that year.[33]A 1995 note left in the City of Torgau’s visitor log, by the actual 69th Infantry Division soldier who appeared in the photograph, did not initially prompt a formal review by historians.[32]
In 2008, after amateur U.S. military historians submitted evidence contradicting prior identifications, Dr. Uwe Niedersen of the Torgau-based Förderverein Europa Begegnungen e.V. reviewed original archival materials. His findings documented and conveyed in 4 September 2008 emails —later endorsed by the 69th Infantry Division Association and Torgau’s event organizers—established that the soldier long identified as Philpott was in fact T/Sgt. Bernard E. Kirschenbaum.[32][5]
Subsequent independent research and media coverage confirmed the corrected identifications of the soldiers depicted.[34]This correction acknowledged by both American and German historical bodies, resolved a decades-long case of mistaken identity within one of World War II’s most recognizable images.
After the Elbe link-up, the69th Infantry Division was ordered to hold at the river, while the58th Guards Rifle Division advanced toward Berlin and fought in street-to-street combat during the final weeks of the war.[35] Thau sustained a machine-gun wound to his cheek—his second combat injury of 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.[36][37]
After the war, Thau returned briefly to Zabłotów. Upon learning that his immediate family had perished, he did not remain.[38] He became involved inBricha operations based in Austria and later immigrated to the United States, where he raised a family and became a business owner.[39]
Thau relocated to Salzburg, Austria, where he worked as an automobile mechanic while participating in the undergroundBricha network.[7] The Bricha organization helpedHolocaust survivors and other displaced refugees reach British-administered Palestine.[6] From Camp Saalfelden near Salzburg, Thau and his colleagues facilitated transport, clandestine border crossings, and the preparation of forged documents to move refugees across the Alps.[7] Refugees then traveled by ferry to bypass British controls and enter Mandatory Palestine.[40]
.jpg)
Recalling what soldiers of the 69th Infantry Division had told him at the Elbe link-up about life in America, Thau sought help from theAmerican Jewish Joint Distribution Committee at Camp Saalfelden to immigrate to the United States. 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.[41]
Thau arrived in New York on 7 September 1951 aboard theUSS General M. B. Stewart, then traveled to Sheboygan and later settled inMilwaukee.[42]
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 post-war Salzburg.Before establishing his branded Phillips 66 stations, Thau is believed to have operated his first auto-repair garage in Milwaukee in the early 1950s.[8][note 2]
From the mid-1950s through the 1990s, Thau operated multiple service stations which expanded into a series of Phillips 66–branded filling stations across the city.[8][43]
_and_helper_Glenn_at_Captial_Drive_Phillips_66_garage_circa_1970.jpg)
The earliest independently documented business, listed as Thau’s 66 Service Station, was located at 433 South 6th Street in the early 1960s.[44]
He later established Thau’s Garage at 4229 West Greenfield Avenue and operated another Phillips 66 station on West Capitol Drive.[45]
His service stations became neighborhood fixtures, providing mechanical work and fuel typical of Phillips 66 outlets. Thau often used his multilingual skills—Polish, Russian, Yiddish, German, and English—to assist newly arrived immigrants from Eastern Europe. His garages informally served as gathering places for Milwaukee’s post-war Jewish and Central European community, where he helped with translations, employment referrals, and introductions.[39]
Even as his business grew, Thau remained personally involved in daily operations and maintained close ties with his family and community.
Thau worked long hours while raising a family. He married Ida (née Faich); they had three children: Martin, Jeffrey, and Esther.[37]
In 1951, during his first routine dental X-ray in Milwaukee, a slug fragment from his Berlin wound was discovered still lodged in his cheek and was surgically removed, six years after he was wounded.[36] Family photographs from the 1960s show Thau with his sons socializing in a Milwaukee home during the period when he was operating and growing his Phillips 66 service stations.
The images, preserved in the Thau Family Album, illustrate the personal side of a man whose early life had been defined by war and displacement.
In 1955, Thau recounted his wartime experiences—including the Elbe link-up and his combat injuries—in an interview with the Milwaukee Journal.[3] As the Cold War subsided, recognition ofElbe Day, in which Thau appeared prominently, increased during later decades, including in official U.S.–Russian commemorations.[46]
He largely avoided public discussion of his wartime past until later in life. His role at the Elbe River drew renewed attention in the 1990s and 2000s, as the event was commemorated jointly by the United States and Russia.
Post–Cold War anniversaries featured joint statements by national leaders, such as the 2005 declaration by U.S. PresidentGeorge W. Bush and Russian PresidentVladimir Putin, reaffirming Elbe Day as a symbol of wartime cooperation.[47] Similar acknowledgments by other heads of state—including PresidentsBill Clinton andBarack Obama, as well asMikhail Gorbachev—further highlighted Elbe Day’s significance.[48][49][50] The Elbe Day image also inspired a bas-relief sculpture at theNational World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C.[46]
In subsequent decades, commemorations in Germany have continued to highlight 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.[51]
Charles Thau died on 2 April 1995, a few weeks before the 50th anniversary of Elbe Day.[9]
Thau’s appearance in the Elbe handshake photograph endures as a visual symbol of Allied partnership and of the human connections forged in the final days of the Second World War.
