Joseph Polowsky (1916–1983) was an American soldier who with others met Soviet troops on the banks of Elbe River on April 25, 1945 and later became an anti-war activist. He was the youngest son of Jewish immigrants who had immigrated from the Kiev area in the Russian Empire to the United States and worked first as a conductor and bus driver for the Chicago Transit Authority, then as a taxi driver for the in Chicago. In 1946 Polowsky was discharged from the army. Back in the U.S., he unsuccessfully asked the United Nations to declare 25 April a World Day of Peace.