On Dec. 7, 1941, as the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, a young Jewish man in what is now Ukraine had a harrowing choice to make. Either be captured by the Nazis — who had already taken his parents and two brothers — or run and hide in a forest.
Charles Thau chose the latter, fleeing into a densely wooded area in Eastern Poland where he lived off the land with no shelter for 19 months.
“His revenge was to survive,” said his son, Marty Thau. “My father was a fighter.”
Marty Thau tells his father’s remarkable story as part of the Nathan and Esther Pelz Holocaust Education Resource Center Speakers Bureau. The 72-year-old retiree has been speaking about his father’s life at schools, libraries and churches for about seven years.
Teachers typically teach the Holocaust for about a week during a school year, Marty Thau said.
“When you get a chance to have a survivor, or a survivor’s child come and speak on what they went through … to me, that’s putting the meat on the bone, having a real perspective from somebody that lived with a Holocaust survivor,” he said.
“Because of the antisemitism going on in the world today… you need to bring this stuff up to these students, young adults,” he added. “It’s a story that these kids don’t get from reading in a book.”
His presentation is 45 minutes. After he is done, he typically gets swamped with questions.
“It’s paying it forward,” he said. “My father didn’t say much. If you ever talk to any survivor, they don’t say much. They’re embarrassed; they’re afraid.”
The elder Thau was born in 1922 in Zablotow, a town in southeast Ukraine. His parents were farm peddlers. When he was 18, the Nazis invaded his town and his parents urged him and his two brothers to flee. His brothers refused, but Charlie ran into the dense forest.
“Nineteen months no shelter, no food,” Marty Thau said. “His teachers in the forest were the animals. He watched how they survived, and that’s basically how my dad survived.”
Charles Thau joined a small partisan resistance fighter group and then joined the Soviet Army, trained in Siberia, and fought on the front lines as a commander of four tanks. In 1946, he returned to Zablotow, finding his town in ruins and the Jewish population gone.
At some point between 1945 and 1951, Charles Thau suffered a bullet wound in his mouth.
“He thought it was broken bone. It wasn’t a cheek bone break. It was a bullet,” he said.
In 1951, Charles Thau came to America and then to Sheboygan, eventually ending up in Milwaukee, where he met his wife, Ida. They had three children. He owned a car repair business on 59th and Lisbon and had several other repair shops around the Milwaukee area.
“I learned so much from my father. I was always anxious to see my father when he got home from work,” Marty Thau said, noting that he spent many days in his father’s shop, learning about automobiles.
“My hobby is I work on cars,” he said, adding that he volunteers at MATC in the automotive department. “If I didn’t spend the time I did with him, I wouldn’t know what I’m doing today. I wouldn’t have a hobby like working in cars.”
Marty Thau has been married to his wife, Sandy, for 50 years, and they have three children and nine grandchildren. He worked at Rockwell Automation and Allen-Bradley as a program manager for 38 years until he retired in 2015. Throughout his life, his father has been his inspiration.
“He was a hero, a recognized hero and a Holocaust survivor,” he said.
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