Charles Thau

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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.