Posted on 04/25/2015 8:48:11 AM PDT by Kid Shelleen
At the moment the camera shutter clicked, Chaim "Charley" Thau had already lived a lifetime of adventure and anxiety.
On that day 70 years ago, he didn't know whether he would live to see the next day or the day after that. He didn't know he would survive a bullet to the face the following week in brutal fighting for control of Berlin.
Or that someday he would immigrate to America and marry a woman named Ida, raise three children and open a gas station in Milwaukee. Or that he would live to the age of 73, but rarely mention the war that so defined his early life.
He didn't know that photo would run on front pages around the world, becoming a signature moment toward the end of the war.
And how could he have ever imagined that one of his sons would travel to the spot of that historic photo for commemoration ceremonies, culminating Saturday with the 70th anniversary celebration.
(Excerpt) Read more at jsonline.com ...
This must have been before the Communist coup d'etat in Czechoslovakia in 1948. He was lucky to make it to the West.
Indeed. It is a pretty remarkable story. I found it interesting that after witnessing the horror of war and talking with US soldiers in German (he could not speak English) he knew in his gut that America was the best place to go. Stories like these are the best antidotes to the blame America, shame America crowd.
Hillary’s infamous “reset” button she presented to the Rooskies (stolen by one of her flying monkeys from a hotel spa) actually translated to “overcharged or overloaded.” Incompetence on steroids. And wow, haven’t we been overcharged *and* overloaded by the Clintons for decades. Time for them — and the Bush clan — to get out of the public eye.
The article neeeds to be corrected. He has to be 93 years old.
End of article says he died in 1995. It is confusing; author has him speaking in present tense.
Now having read the entire article, it turns out that Thau died in 1995. That should have been noted at the begining of the article. The entire article was written as if the discussion with him had just happened with the writer.
Anybody have the ‘photo on the right’? I’d love to see Charley at his gas station.
He fights all the way to Germany then gets shot in the face. The doctors miss the bullet fragment then pronounce him ready for duty and he gets sent to Manchuria.
The Russian army was one mean army.
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