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June 18, 1929 .... Tibor born June 18, 1942 .....Tibor be 13 June 18, 1943..... Tibor be 14 May 5, 1943 - May 5, 1945 .... Tibor at Mauthausen .... No deportation till May of 1944 **Hungary didn't deport Jew till May 1944 |
PEOPLE AND HISTORY
Ethnic groups in Hungary include Magyar (nearly 90%), Romany, German, Serb,
Slovak, and others. The majority of Hungary's people are Roman Catholic; other
religions represented are Calvinist, Lutheran, Jewish, Baptist, Adventist,
Pentecostal, and Unitarian. Magyar is the predominant language.
Hungary has long been an integral part of Europe. It converted to Western Christianity before AD 1000. Although Hungary was a monarchy for nearly 1,000 years, its constitutional system preceded by several centuries the establishment of Western-style governments in other European countries. Following the defeat of the Austro-Hungarian Dual Monarchy (1867-1918) at the end of World War I, Hungary lost two-thirds of its territory and nearly as much of its population. It experienced a brief but bloody communist dictatorship and counterrevolution in 1919, followed by a 25-year regency under Adm. Miklos Horthy.
Although Hungary fought in most of World War II as a German ally, it fell under German military occupation following an unsuccessful attempt to switch sides on October 15,1944. In January 1945, a provisional government concluded an armistice with the Soviet Union and established the Allied Control Commission, under which Soviet, American, and British representatives held complete sovereignty over the country. The Commission's chairman was a member of Stalin's inner circle and exercised absolute control.
In mid-May 1944, the Hungarian authorities, in coordination with the German Security Police, began to systematically deport the Hungarian Jews. SS Colonel Adolf Eichmann was chief of the team of "deportation experts" that worked with the Hungarian authorities. The Hungarian police carried out the roundups and forced the Jews onto the deportation trains. In less than two months, nearly 440,000 Jews were deported from Hungary in more than 145 trains. Most were deported to Auschwitz, but thousands were also sent to the border with Austria to be deployed at digging fortification trenches. By the end of July 1944, the only Jewish community left in Hungary was that of Budapest, the capital.
In some Hungarian cities, Jews were compelled to live outdoors, without shelter or sanitary facilities. Food and water supplies were dangerously inadequate; medical care was virtually non-existent. Hungarian authorities forbade the Jews from leaving the ghettos and police guarded the perimeters of the enclosures. Individual gendarmes often tortured Jews and extorted personal valuables from them. None of these ghettos existed for more than a few weeks and many were liquidated within days.
LOS ANGELES (Sept. 17) - Tibor Rubin kept his promise to join the U.S. Army after American troops freed him from the Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria during World War II.
A Hungarian Jew, Rubin immigrated to New York after the war, joined the Army and fought as an infantryman in the Korean War. In 1951, Chinese troops captured Cpl. Rubin and other U.S. soldiers and he became a prisoner of war for 2 1/2 years.
More than five decades later, after a relentless campaign by grateful comrades and Jewish war veterans, President Bush on Sept. 23 will give Rubin the Medal of Honor.
"I was only staying alive to get that medal and now I'm going to enjoy it," said the 76-year-old Rubin, who now lives in Garden Grove.
He was nominated four times for the medal, the nation's highest recognition for bravery in battle. But some believe the paperwork was never submitted because a member of his chain of command discriminated against him for being Jewish and born in Hungary.
When he was at the Chinese prisoners' camp known as "Death Valley," Rubin said he would pray in Hebrew for the U.S. soldiers _ about 40 each day _ who died in the freezing weather.
He also took care of soldiers suffering from dysentery or pneumonia.
Rubin, who goes by the name Ted, called concentration camp good "basic training" for being a POW and applied lifesaving lessons he learned there. For example, Rubin said he would retrieve maggots from the prisoners' latrine and apply them to the infected wounds of his comrades to remove gangrene.
Fellow POW Sgt. Leo Cormier said Rubin gave a lot of GIs the courage to live.
"I once saw him spend the whole night picking lice off a guy who didn't have the strength to lift his head," Cormier told the Army. "What man would do that? ... But Ted did things for his fellow men that made him a hero in my book."
Years in a Nazi concentration camp had taught Rubin ways of survival that most humans never need know. He knew how to make soup out of grass, what weeds had medicinal qualities and that the human body can sometimes prevail if a person's mind is in the right place.
As a POW, Rubin turned down repeated offers from the Chinese to be returned to his native Hungary.
"I told them I couldn't go back because I was in the U.S. Army and I wouldn't leave my American brothers because they needed me here," Rubin said.
Rubin wouldn't say anything negative about the Army and his long wait for the Medal of Honor. But in affidavits filed in support of Rubin's nomination, fellow soldiers said their sergeant was allegedly a vicious anti-Semite who gave Rubin dangerous assignments in hopes of getting him killed.
In 1988, the Jewish War Veterans of the United States urged Congress to recognize Rubin's efforts. And U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler of Florida introduced a bill in 2001 to force the Pentagon to review the records of Jewish veterans who may have been denied the Medal of Honor because they were Jews.
About 150 records remain under review, said Bob Zweiman, past national commander of the Jewish War Veterans.
09-18-05 15:17 EDT
Jewish War Veterans Act of 2001 (Introduced in Senate)
S 1200 IS
107th CONGRESS
1st Session
S. 1200
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
Mr. CLELAND (for himself and Mr. LIEBERMAN) introduced the following bill; which was read twice and referred to the Committee on Armed Services
A BILL
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
This Act may be cited as the `Jewish War Veterans Act of 2001'.
(a) REVIEW REQUIRED- The Secretary of each military department shall review the service records of each Jewish American war veteran described in subsection (b) to determine whether or not that veteran should be awarded the Medal of Honor.
(b) COVERED JEWISH AMERICAN WAR VETERANS- The Jewish American war veterans whose service records are to be reviewed under subsection (a) are the following:
(1) Any Jewish American war veteran who was previously awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, the Navy Cross, or the Air Force Cross.
(2) Any other Jewish American war veteran whose name is submitted to the Secretary concerned for such purpose by the Jewish War Veterans of the United States of America before the end of the one-year period beginning on the date of the enactment of this Act.
(c) CONSULTATIONS- In carrying out the review under subsection (a), the Secretary of each military department shall consult with the Jewish War Veterans of the United States of America and with such other veterans service organizations as the Secretary considers appropriate.
(d) RECOMMENDATION BASED ON REVIEW- If the Secretary concerned determines, based upon the review under subsection (a) of the service records of any Jewish American war veteran, that the award of the Medal of Honor to that veteran is warranted, the Secretary shall submit to the President a recommendation that the President award the Medal of Honor to that veteran.
(e) AUTHORITY TO AWARD MEDAL OF HONOR- A Medal of Honor may be awarded to a Jewish American war veteran in accordance with a recommendation of the Secretary concerned under subsection (d).
(f) WAIVER OF TIME LIMITATIONS- An award of the Medal of Honor may be made under subsection (e) without regard to--
(1) section 3744, 6248, or 8744 of title 10, United States Code, as applicable; and
(2) any regulation or other administrative restriction on--
(A) the time for awarding the Medal of Honor; or
(B) the awarding of the Medal of Honor for service for which a Distinguished Service Cross, Navy Cross, Air Force Cross, or any other decoration has been awarded.
(g) JEWISH AMERICAN WAR VETERAN DEFINED- In this section, the term `Jewish American war veteran' means any person who served in the Armed Forces during World War II or a later period of war and who identified himself or herself as Jewish on his or her military personnel records.
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Pentagon Reviews Jewish Veteran Files Were Tibor Rubin and 137 other soldiers denied the Medal of Honor because of anti-Semitism? By Tom Tugend |
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Early in May, the Pentagon received a list with the names and backgrounds of 138 Jewish war veterans, with the single thickest file documenting the exploits of Tibor Rubin. The cover letter asked Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to review the records of Rubin and the other 137 Jewish veterans to determine whether they were denied the Medal of Honor, America’s highest award for bravery in combat, because they were Jews. Similar appeals have been routinely ignored by the Pentagon over the past decades. But this time, the request carried the force of a law, passed by Congress and signed by President Bush in December, ordering the review. To some, the request may smack of special Jewish pleading, but it is not the first time that the U.S. military, now a model equal-opportunity employer, has been forced to revisit its earlier record of discrimination against minorities. In 1996, the Pentagon reviewed the files of Japanese American and other Asian American veterans and belatedly awarded the Medal of Honor to 21 of them. The records of African American servicemen, who were institutionally segregated throughout World War II, were reexamined and eight were recognized for the nation’s most prestigious decoration. A similar review of Hispanic veterans has been mandated. The congressional bill providing for a review of selected Jewish veterans is known as the Leonard Kravitz Jewish War Veterans Act. Kravitz, the uncle and namesake of rock musician Lenny Kravitz, was killed manning his lone machine gun against attacking Chinese troops during the Korean War, allowing the rest of his platoon to retreat in safety. Kravitz was recommended for a Medal of Honor, but the award was downgraded to a Distinguished Service Cross, the second-highest decoration.
All the men on the list, save one, had been awarded the Service Cross by the Army, Navy or Air Force. The exception is Tibor Rubin, who was recommended four times for the Medal of Honor by his commanding officers or comrades, two times for the Distinguished Service Cross and twice for the Silver Star — but didn’t get anything except two Purple Hearts and a 100 percent disability.
Rubin, known as "Tibi" to his Hungarian childhood friends and "Ted" to his American buddies, has two other distinctions he would as soon have foregone — two years in a Nazi concentration camp as a teenager and 30 months in North Korean prisoner of war camp. The first impression on entering Rubin’s modest home in Garden Grove is a living room cluttered wall-to-wall with plastic shopping bags and cardboard cartons. They hold 22 years worth of correspondence, appeals and affidavits by his erstwhile comrades, veterans organizations and congressmen demanding recognition of Rubin’s heroism, and all routinely ignored by the Pentagon. To an initially skeptical reporter, even a small sampling of the hoard of papers reveals a record of bravery and sacrifice, counterpointed by the vicious anti-Semitism of a key figure, reminiscent of wartime novels by a Norman Mailer or Irwin Shaw.
Rubin, 72, was born in Paszto, a Hungarian shtetl of 120 Jewish families, the son of a shoemaker and one of six children. At age 13, he was transported to the Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria and liberated two years later by American troops. Both his parents and two sisters perished in the Holocaust. He came to the United States in 1948, settled in New York and worked first as a shoemaker and then as a butcher. In 1949, he tried to enlist in the U.S. Army, both as an assumed shortcut to citizenship and, he hoped, to attend the Army’s butcher school in Chicago. Knowing hardly any English, he flunked the language test but tried again in 1950 and passed, with some judicious help from two fellow test-takers.
By July of that year, Pfc. Rubin found himself fighting on the frontlines in Korea with I Company, Eighth Regiment, First Cavalry Division. There he encountered the terror of I Company: Sgt. Artice V. Watson, who, from numerous descriptions, could have been modeled on the sadistic Sgt. 1st Class Rickett in Shaw’s "The Young Lions." Watson, who according to lengthy affidavits submitted by nearly a dozen men who served under him — mostly self-described "country boys" from the South and Midwest — was a vicious anti-Semite, who consistently "volunteered" Rubin for the most dangerous patrols and missions. In one such mission, according to the testimonies of his comrades, Rubin secured a route of retreat for his company by single-handedly defending a hill for 24 hours against waves of North Korean soldiers.
For these and other harrowing acts of bravery, Rubin was three times recommended for the Medal of Honor by two of his commanding officers. Both were shortly afterward killed in action, but not before ordering Watson to initiate the necessary paperwork to secure the medals for Rubin.
Some of Rubin’s fellow GIs were present when Watson was ordered to seek the medals, and all are convinced that he deliberately ignored the orders. "I really believe, in my heart, that First Sgt. Watson would have jeopardized his own safety rather than assist in any way whatsoever in the awarding of the medal to a person of Jewish descent," wrote Cpl. Harold Speakman in a notarized affidavit. Toward the end of October 1950, massive Chinese troop concentrations crossed the border into North Korea and attacked the unprepared Americans. After most of his regiment had been wiped out, the severely wounded Rubin was captured and spent the next 30 months in a prisoner of war camp. Faced with constant hunger, filth and disease, most of the GIs simply gave up. "No one wanted to help anyone. Everybody was for himself," wrote Sgt. Leo A, Cormier Jr., a fellow prisoner. The exception was Rubin. Almost every evening, he would sneak out of the camp to steal food from the Chinese and North Korean supply depots, knowing that he would be shot if caught. "He shared the food evenly among the GIs," Cormier wrote. "He also took care of us, nursed us, carried us to the latrine....He did many good deeds, which he told us were mitzvahs in the Jewish tradition....He was a very religious Jew and helping his fellow men was the most important thing to him." The survivors of the camp credited Rubin with keeping 35 to 40 of their number alive and recommended him for the Medal of Honor, Distinguished Service Cross and Silver Star. Cpl. Leonard Hamm of Indiana wrote the Army that Rubin had saved his life, both on the battlefield and in the camp. He went on to upbraid the Pentagon for its "degrading and insulting treatment" of "one of the greatest men I have ever known and definitely one of the greatest heroes in this nation’s history." Sgt. Carl McClendon, another soldier saved by Rubin, wrote, "He [Rubin] had more courage, guts and fellowship than I ever knew anyone had. He is the most outstanding man I ever met, with a heart of gold. Tibor Rubin committed every day bravery that boggles my mind. How he ever came home alive is a mystery to me." Should Rubin receive all the medals for which he has been recommended, he would become the most decorated American soldier of the Korean War. Back in civilian life, Rubin finally got his American citizenship in 1953. He tried to resume his old job as a butcher, but a combination of crippling afflictions, traceable to his war wounds and POW experience, forced him to quit. He now lives with his wife Yvonne, a Dutch Holocaust survivor, and has close ties with his son, Frank, an Air Force veteran, and daughter, Rosalyn. Over the years, many attempts have been made to shake the Pentagon’s apparent lethargy. In 1988, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) introduced a special bill on Rubin’s behalf. Former Republican Rep. Robert K. Dornan of Orange County pleaded for recognition of his constituent, and now the campaign is being spearheaded by Reps. Benjamin Gilman (R-N.Y.) and Robert Wexler (D-Fla.). The Jewish War Veterans (JWV) have championed Rubin’s cause for many years. At one point, the organization collected 42,000 signatures on a petition, which was personally transmitted to President Ronald Reagan by a former JWV commander. Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. James Cassella said that a review of the combat records of Jewish veterans, depending on their branch of service, will be conducted separately by the heads of the Army, Navy and Air Force. After more than 50 years of waiting, Rubin hopes that the United States will finally and formally recognize his services. He says, "I want this recognition for my Jewish brothers and sisters. I want the goyim to know that there were Jews over there, that there was a little greenhorn, a little shmuck from Hungary, who fought for their beloved country." |
President George W. Bush announced last night that he will honor Cpl. Tibor
Rubin in recognition of his courageous actions in Korea from 1950 to 1953. The
Medal of Honor will be presented to Rubin during a White House ceremony, Sept.
23.
At age 13, Rubin was forced from his native Hungarian Jewish community to the
Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria.
Both his parents and two sisters
perished in the Holocaust. Rubin survived until the camp was liberated two years
later by American troops.
Rubin immigrated to the United States in 1948 and answered the noble call to
duty by volunteering for Army service. By July 1950, Rubin was fighting on the
front lines in Korea as an infantryman in I "Item" Company, 3rd Battalion, 8th
Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division. During numerous engagements, Rubin’s
actions to engage the enemy and to tend the wounded, at careless disregard for
his own safety, resulted in the heroic defense of his unit. In one such mission,
Rubin single-handedly defended a hill for 24 hours thereby allowing his company
to withdraw.
In October 1950, Chinese troops crossed the border into North Korea and attacked
American troops. In the ensuing battle, Rubin was severely wounded and captured
along with other Soldiers. For the next two and a half years, Rubin risked his
life daily to keep his fellow Soldiers alive and hopeful in two of the worst
prisoner of war camps. According to witnesses, his personal actions to obtain
food and to provide medical care directly resulted in more that 40 Soldiers
surviving “Death Valley” and Pyoktong.
TIBOR "Ted" Rubin knows what it's like to slowly starve to death, how lice itch when crawling over skin and how giving up on life can seem easier than fighting for it.
Nazi guards made sure Rubin understood despair at the age of 13. A Hungarian Jew, he was forced into the Mauthausen Concentration Camp toward the end of World War II. But Rubin defied odds: He survived. After the war he moved to New York, and eventually joined the same Army that liberated him from hell on earth.
From the horror of the Holocaust arose a bravery that few can match. Rubin went on to fight in the Korean War and was taken prisoner by the Chinese communists. This time, he breathed life into his fellow captives, who were dying at the rate of 40 a day in the winter of 1950-1951.
"He saved a lot of GI's lives. He gave them the courage to go on living when a lot of guys didn't make it," said SGT Leo Cormier, a fellow POW. "He saved my life when I could have laid in a ditch and died -- I was nothing but flesh and bones."
Rubin was nominated for the Medal of Honor four times by grateful comrades. A medal he might otherwise have received at age 23 is scheduled to be draped over his neck by President George W. Bush in a White House ceremony Sept. 23. While most military decorations are awarded for a single act, Rubin's was earned by courage that withstood battle on the front lines, and then thrived in the face of death for two and a half years.
"People ask, 'How the hell did you get through all that?'" said Rubin, now 77. "I can't answer, but I figured whatever I did, I was never going to make it out alive."
Valor
At the end of October 1950, thousands of Chinese troops were laying in wait. Masters of camouflage, they blended into the brush and burned fires to produce smoke to mask their movements. When Soldiers of the 8th Cavalry Regiment were stretched before them like sitting ducks, the Chinese swarmed in.
"The whole mountain let loose," said Rubin, who was then a corporal serving in the 8th Cav.'s 3rd Battalion. On Oct. 30 the 3rd Bn.'s firepower dwindled to a single machine gun, which three Soldiers had already died manning. By the time Rubin stepped up to fire, most of his fellow Soldiers felt doomed in the confusion of battle.
"Nobody wanted to take over, but somebody had to. We didn't have anything else left to fight with," he said. Rubin's buddies say he was a hero, selflessly defending his unit against thousands of Chinese troops.
Battle raged for three days around Unsan, then the Chinese pushed the Soldiers south. Those who survived retreated with little or no ammunition and hundreds of wounded. More than 1,000 men of the 8th Cav. were listed as missing in action after the battle, but some returned to friendly lines or were rescued by tank patrols in the following weeks.
Earlier in the war, as the 8th Cav. moved toward the Pusan Perimeter, Rubin kept to the rear to ward off North Koreans nipping at his battalion's heels. At 4 a.m., while defending a hill on his own, Rubin heard gunfire from what sounded like hundreds of enemy troops.
"I figured I was a goner. But I ran from one foxhole to the next, throwing hand grenades so the North Koreans would think they were fighting more than one person," he said. "I couldn't think straight -- in a situation like that, you become hysterical trying to save your life."
"He tied up the enemy forces, allowing the safe withdrawal of Allied troops and equipment on the Taegu-Pusan road. The enemy suffered, not only tremendous casualties ... but it slowed the North Korean invading momentum along that route, saving countless American lives and giving the 8th Cav. precious time to regroup to the south," wrote CPL Leonard Hamm in his nomination of Rubin for the MOH.
As Corporal Leonard Hamm relates, "the North Koreans, thinking the hill was still occupied by a whole company, made an all out offensive with all their available troops. PFC Tibor Rubin had stocked each foxhole with grenades, and during the attack the following morning made his way running from foxhole to foxhole, lobbing, one after the other, grenades down upon the enemy, he became almost hysterical in his actions but he held the hill."
Tibor defies snipers and saves another Jew
And when Hamm himself later lay fallen, it was Rubin who fought to go back for him when the first sergeant issued orders to leave him behind. "But we didn't know if he was dead," Rubin said. "All I could think about was that somebody back home was waiting for him to return."
Rubin was pinned down by snipers and forced to low-crawl for several hundred yards when rescuing Hamm, whose body was so loaded with shrapnel that he could hardly lift a limb.
"Rubin not only saved my life by carrying me to safety; he kept the North Korean snipers off our butts," said Hamm.
When battle ended in Unsan,
hundreds of Soldiers were taken prisoner by the Chinese. They were forced to
march to a camp known today as "Death Valley," ill-dressed for winter's freezing
temperatures, exhausted and hungry. Many of them grew sick with dysentery,
pneumonia or hepatitis. Others died. "It
was so cold that nobody wanted to move, and the food we got was barely enough to
keep us alive," said former
Sgt. Richard A. Whalen. "But Rubin was a tremendous asset to us, keeping our
spirits up when no one felt good."
Years in a Nazi concentration camp had taught Rubin ways of survival that most humans never need know. He knew how to make soup out of grass, what weeds had medicinal qualities and that the human body can sometimes prevail if a person's mind is in the right place.
What his comrades needed, Rubin knew, was hope -- hope to keep them moving and hope to make them fight for their lives.
"Some of them gave up, and some of them prayed to be taken," Rubin remembers. He held pep talks, reminding the Soldiers of the families awaiting their safe return home. He stole food for them to eat, nagged them to "debug" themselves of the relentless lice and even nursed them through sickness.
"He'd go out of his way to do favors to help us survive," said Cormier. "I once saw him spend the whole night picking lice off a guy who didn't have the strength to lift his head. What man would do that? I'd have told him to go down and soak in the cold water so the lice would all fall off. But Ted did things for his fellow men that made him a hero in my book."
Rubin thought the best way to overpower his captors was by hitting them where it hurt most -- their bellies.
"They didn't have much more food to eat than we did," Rubin said. "One potato would have been worth a million dollars if any of us had had it to give." So when night fell he stole corn, millet and barley. And when the Chinese planted a "victory" garden, he snuck past armed guards to reap the harvest, stuffing his pants full of radishes, green onions and cucumbers. "The Chinese would've cut Ted's throat if they'd caught him stealing. It still amazes me that they never did catch him," said Cormier. "What he did to help us could have meant the sacrifice of his own life."
Rubin and Cormier became fast friends as POWs. They were assigned as "bunkmates," although mud floors served as beds for the hundreds of men confined together in small rooms. When dysentery seized Cormier's body, Rubin stayed at his side and nursed him. Fellow prisoners credit Rubin with saving the lives of more than 40 Soldiers during his imprisonment at "Death Valley" and later at Camp 5 in Pyoktong. About 1,600 U.S. Soldiers died in Camp 5 in early 1951.
Rubin was repatriated under "Operation Little Switch," the initial exchange of sick and wounded prisoners from April 20 to May 3, 1953.
A Hero is Born
Life as a prisoner under the Nazis and the Chinese are incomparable for Rubin.
Of his Chinese captors, Rubin says only that they were "human" and somewhat
lenient.
Of the Nazis, Rubin remains baffled by their capacity to kill. He was just a boy when he lost his parents and two little sisters to the Nazi's brutality. "In Mauthausen, they told us right away, 'You Jews, none of you will ever make it out of here alive'," Rubin remembers. "Every day so many people were killed. Bodies piled up God knows how high. We had nothing to look forward to but dying. It was a most terrible thing, like a horror movie." American Soldiers swept into the camp on May 5, 1945, to liberate the prisoners. It is still a miraculous day for Rubin, indelibly imprinted in his heart. "The American Soldiers had great compassion for us. Even though we were filthy, we stunk and had diseases, they picked us up and brought us back to life." Rubin made a vow that day that he's fulfilled ten times over.
"I made a promise that I would go to the United States and join the Army to express my thanks," said Rubin. Three years later he arrived in New York. Two years after that he passed the English language test -- after two attempts and with "more than a little help," he jokes -- and joined the Army. He was shipped to the 29th Infantry Regiment in Okinawa. When the Korean War broke out, Rubin was summoned by his company commander.
"The 29th Inf. Regt. is mobilizing. You are not a U.S. citizen so we can't take you -- a lot of us are going to get killed. We'll send you to Japan or Germany," Rubin remembers being told.
"But I could not just leave my unit for some 'safe' zone," Rubin said. "I was with these guys in basic training. Even though I wasn't a citizen yet, America was my country."
Rubin got what he wanted and headed for Korea -- to the good fortune of many Soldiers who served alongside him. "I'm beholden to him," said Cormier, who watched Rubin bend over backwards for his brothers in arms. Luck was also on Whalen's side, because he was herded to "Death Valley" alongside Rubin.
"I have to say this was the luckiest break of my life because he and I went up that valley together, and we were assigned to the same house," Whalen said. "I wouldn't be here today without him."
The same could be said of former Cpl. James E. Bourgeois, for whom Rubin cleaned wounds and bandages with boiled snow. "At one time my wounds got so infected he put maggots in them to prevent gangrene from setting in. This, I am sure, not only saved my left arm -- which I have full use of today -- but also my life," Bourgeois said.
When being admired for his courage, Rubin is quick to wave off praise. His acts had more to do with his vow to serve than with heroism, he said. "The real heroes are those who never came home. I was just lucky," Rubin said. "This Medal of Honor belongs to all prisoners of war, to all the heroes who died fighting in those wars."
And Rubin can't forget the Jews who died in vain, or the American Soldiers who made survivors of the rest. To them, he dedicated the best years of his life, becoming an American war hero -- a Soldier of uncommon bravery
In October 1950, Rubin defended a hill by himself manning a machine gun in which three other soldiers had already died while firing. He also later tossed grenades down foxholes on advancing North Koreans, allowing other soldiers to flee.
As Corporal Leonard Hamm relates, "the North Koreans, thinking the hill was still occupied by a whole company, made an all out offensive with all their available troops. PFC Tibor Rubin had stocked each foxhole with grenades, and during the attack the following morning made his way running from foxhole to foxhole, lobbing, one after the other, grenades down upon the enemy, he became almost hysterical in his actions but he held the hill."
During the Korean War, Tibor Rubin secured a route of retreat for his company
by single-handedly defending a hill for 24 hours against waves of North Korean
soldiers.
Despite this and other acts of bravery, Rubin has never received the Medal of
Honor, America's highest award for bravery in combat.
Now, however, there's a chance that
Rubin and 137 other Jewish war veterans may receive some belated recognition.
The Pentagon recently received a request to examine whether or not the Jewish
veterans were denied the Medal of Honor because they were Jews.
Similar appeals regarding anti-Semitism in awarding the Medal of Honor have been
routinely ignored by the Pentagon over the decades.
But this time the request carries the
force of a law, passed by Congress and signed by President
Bush
in December, ordering just such a review.
To some, the request may smack of special-interest politics, but it is not the
first time that the U.S. military, now a model equal opportunity employer, has
been forced to revisit its earlier record of discrimination against minorities.
In 1996, the Pentagon reviewed the files of Japanese-American and other
Asian-American veterans, and belatedly awarded the Medal of Honor to 21 of them.
The records of African-American servicemen -institutionally segregated
throughout World War II - were re-examined and eight were recognized for the
nation's most prestigious decoration. A similar review of Hispanic veterans has
been mandated.
The congressional bill providing for a
review of selected Jewish veterans is known as the "Leonard
Kravitz
Jewish War Veterans
Act."
Kravitz,
the uncle and namesake of rock musician Lenny
Kravitz,
was killed manning his lone machine gun against attacking Chinese troops during
the Korean War, allowing the rest of his platoon to retreat in safety.
Kravitz was recommended for a Medal of Honor, but the award was downgraded to a
Distinguished Service Cross, the second highest decoration.
All the men on the list, save one, had been awarded the service cross by the
Army, Navy or Air Force. The exception is Rubin, who was recommended four times
for the Medal of Honor by his commanding officers or comrades, two times for the
Distinguished Service Cross, and twice for the Silver Star - but didn't get
anything except two Purple Hearts and a 100 percent disability.
Rubin has two other distinctions he would just as soon forget - two years in a
Nazi concentration camp as a teenager and 30 months in a North Korean
prisoner-of-war camp.
The first impression on entering Rubin's modest home in Garden Grove, Calif., is
a living room cluttered with plastic shopping bags and cardboard cartons. They
hold 22 years worth of correspondence, appeals and affidavits by his erstwhile
comrades, veteran organizations and congressmen, demanding recognition of
Rubin's heroism - all routinely ignored by the Pentagon.
Even a small sampling of the papers reveals a record of bravery and sacrifice,
counterpointed by the vicious anti-Semitism of a key figure.
Rubin was born in Paszto, a Hungarian shtetl of 120 Jewish families. He was the
son of a shoemaker and one of six children. At age 13, he was transported to the
Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria and liberated two years later by
American troops. Both his parents and two sisters perished in the Holocaust.
He came to the United States in 1948, settled in New York and worked first as a
shoemaker and then as a butcher.
He tried to enlist in the U.S. Army in 1949, both as an assumed shortcut to
American citizenship and, he hoped, to attend the army's butcher school in
Chicago. Knowing hardly any English, he flunked the language test, but tried
again in 1950 and passed, with some judicious help from two fellow test-takers.
By July of that year, Pvt. Rubin found himself fighting on the front lines in
Korea. There he encountered the terror of First Sgt. Artice Watson.
According to lengthy affidavits submitted by nearly a dozen men who served under
Watson, he was a vicious anti-Semite who consistently "volunteered" Rubin for
the most dangerous patrols and missions.
For his harrowing acts of bravery, Rubin was three times recommended for the
Medal of Honor by two of his commanding officers. Both were killed in action
shortly afterward, but not before ordering Watson to initiate the necessary
paperwork to secure the medals for Rubin.
Some of Rubin's fellow GIs were present when Watson was ordered to seek the
medals, and all are convinced that he deliberately ignored the orders.
"I really believe, in my heart, that First Sgt. Watson would have jeopardized
his own safety rather than assist in any way whatsoever in the awarding of the
medal to a person of Jewish descent," wrote Cpl. Harold Speakman in a notarized
affidavit.
Toward the end of October 1950, massive Chinese troop concentrations crossed the
border into North Korea and attacked the unprepared Americans. After most of his
regiment had been wiped out, the severely wounded Rubin was captured and spent
the next 30 months in a prisoner-of-war camp.
Faced with constant hunger, filth and disease, most of the GIs simply gave up.
"No one wanted to help anyone. Everybody was for himself," wrote Sgt. Leo A,
Cormier, Jr., a fellow prisoner.
The exception was Rubin. Almost every even-ing, he would sneak out of the camp
to steal food from the Chinese and North Korean supply depots, knowing that he
would be shot if caught.
"He shared the food evenly among the GIs," wrote Cormier. "He also took care of
us, nursed us, carried us to the latrine. ... He did many good deeds, which he
told us were 'mitzvahs' in the Jewish tradition."
The survivors of the camp credited Rubin with keeping 35 to 40 of their number
alive and recommended him for the Medal of Honor, Distinguished Service Cross
and Silver Star.
Cpl. Leonard Hamm of Indiana wrote the army that Rubin had saved his life, both
on the battlefield and in the camp. He went on to upbraid the Pentagon for its
"degrading and insulting treatment" of "one of the greatest men I have ever
known and definitely one of the greatest heroes in this nation's history."
Should Rubin receive all the medals for which he has been recommended, he would
become the most decorated American soldier of the Korean War.
Back in civilian life, Rubin finally got his American citizenship in 1953. He
tried to resume his old job as a butcher, but a combination of crippling
afflictions, traceable to his war wounds and POW experience, forced him to quit.
He now lives with his wife Yvonne, a Dutch Holocaust survivor, and has close
ties with his son Frank, an Air Force veteran, and daughter Rosalyn.
Over the years, many attempts have been made to shake the Pentagon's apparent
lethargy. In 1988, Sen. John McCain of Arizona introduced a special bill on
Rubin's behalf. Former Rep. Robert Dornan (R-Calif.) pleaded for recognition of
his constituent, and now the campaign is being spearheaded by Reps. Benjamin
Gilman (R-N.Y.) and Robert Wexler (D-Fla.).
The Jewish War Veterans have championed Rubin's cause for many years. At one
point, the organization collected 42,000 signatures on a petition, which was
personally transmitted to President Reagan by a former JWV commander.
Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. James Cassella said that a review of the combat
records of Jewish veterans, depending on their branch of service, would be
conducted separately by the heads of the Army, Navy and Air Force.
After more than 50 years of waiting, Rubin hopes that the United States will
finally and formally recognize his services.
"I want this recognition for my Jewish brothers and sisters," he says. "I want
(non-Jews) to know that there were Jews over there, that there was a little
greenhorn, a little shmuck from Hungary, who fought for their beloved country."
Tibor Rubin's bravery during the Korean War is probably unparalleled in the history of America's fighting heroes. That is why many organizations and individuals are involved in a major campaign to have Congress award him the Congressional Medal of Honor.
Rubin, a Hungarian Holocaust survivor, lost his parents in a Nazi concentration camp in the latter part of World War II. He managed to stay alive and he was liberated. He came to the United States a year and half later and enlisted in the Army to fight in Korea. \
While in Korea, he had broken his leg and was shipped to an Army hospital in Japan. Although his leg was not completely healed, he was assigned to Company I, 8th Cavalry Regiment, which was engaged in fighting the enemy. Former Sergeant Randall J.J. Briere wrote in a letter to the President of the United States, "Although his leg was not completely healed, Tibor went about his everyday chores, always helping others who needed a boost, never concerned for his own health or safety. I warned him to be more cautious since the enemy was out in front of us, but when a cry for help was heard, Tibor managed to be the first one on the scene..."
On November 1, 1950, Tibor was wounded with shrapnel from a grenade in the left hand and chest. He and others of his company were captured by the Chinese, who were fighting with the Korean Communist government. The Chinese forced the captured American soldiers, including the wounded and the sick, to march hard and tedious distance to their prisoner of war camp. Tibor and Father Emil Kapaun, who later died in the prison camp, were both wounded but were carrying stretchers and assisting others who could not walk.
Tibor and Chaplain Kapaun were risking their lives when during rest breaks, they went up and down the line to console the tired soldiers, urging them to continue the march. Those who lagged behind were shot by the enemy. The death rate in the prisoner of war camp was running between 30 and 40 men a day. There were shortages of food, medical attention and medicine. The soldiers were still wearing their summer clothes with temperatures between 30 and 40 degrees.
Rubin, who had learned to survive in a Nazi concentration camp, applied his experience to sneak out during the night to steal food from the Chinese. He would give this food to the other prisoners, especially the sick and dying. Every time he went out for food, Tibor was risking his life. He felt that this way his way of getting back at the enemy as they were short on food themselves.
Tibor was a prisoner for two and one-half years. His fellow prisoners credit him with saving 35 to 40 lives with his daring, almost nightly ventures of stealing food for his comrades. Tibor turned down a number of offers from the Chinese to send him back to his native Hungary.
Tibor Rubin and the others were finally released and sent back to the American hospital in Freedom Village, Korea. He was a stretcher case, suffering from his wounds without complaints. He has been recommended for the Congressional Medal of Honor by the Jewish War Veterans of the USA, Korean Prisoner of War Association, many of his comrades in the prisoner of war camp, individuals and others.
Many heroes receive their awards and recognition through an action that could take minutes, hours, and even a few days. Tibor's heroism and bravery was to be over a two and a half year period, never knowing when he would be caught and executed.
Tibor Rubin resides in California. The campaign to have him receive the Congressional Medal of Honor for his heroism and bravery is stronger than ever. We must give full recognition to heroes like Rubin.
This is one of the 150 illustrated true stories of American heroism included in Jewish Heroes and Heroines of America, © 1996, written by Seymour "Sy" Brody of Delray Beach, Florida, illustrated by Art Seiden of Woodmere, New York, and published by Lifetime Books, Inc., Hollywood, FL.
Although his leg was not completely healed, he was assigned to , which was engaged in fighting the enemy. Former Sergeant Randall J.J. Briere wrote in a letter to the President of the United States, "Although his leg was not completely healed, Tibor went about his everyday chores, always helping others who needed a boost, never concerned for his own health or safety. I warned him to be more cautious since the enemy was out in front of us, but when a cry for help was heard, Tibor managed to be the first one on the scene..."
An American Hero
Meet Ted Rubin.
When the White House called Corporal Tibor "Ted" Rubin to tell him he was to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor he thought it was one of his friends playing a joke. President Bush has called the 76-year-old Korean War veteran "one of the greatest Jewish soldiers America has ever known." But Ted is characteristically modest. "I was just a country boy," he told me, "but next week I'll be honored with the country's highest award. This is unbelievable."
 |
Being awarded the Medal of Honor is another of a series of adventures in Ted Rubin's remarkable life. He was born in Hungary in 1929, and at age 15 was sent to Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria. His first day there an SS captain told the assembled, "None of you will get out of here alive." Ted turned to the man next to him and said, "Nice fellow." Ted survived the next 14 brutal months of captivity, but most of his family perished. His father died in Buchenwald. His ten-year-old sister Elonja was sent to the gas chambers at Auschwitz, and his mother Rosa, who was slated for forced labor, chose instead to face death with her daughter. Mauthausen was liberated by the U.S. 11th Armored Division on May 5, 1945. With nothing left for him in Hungary Ted emigrated to the United States. He promised himself that he would show his appreciation to the country that gave him his freedom, and saved his life.
Ted joined the Army in February 1950, and five months later landed in Korea with the 3rd battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, one of the first American units sent to help repel North Korean invasion forces. Ted was soon involved in the fighting withdrawal to the Pusan perimeter. In one engagement near Chirye, Ted's company was redeploying from one hill to another, and he volunteered to stay behind to keep the enemy guessing until the movement was completed. As Corporal Leonard Hamm relates, "the North Koreans, thinking the hill was still occupied by a whole company, made an all out offensive with all their available troops. PFC Tibor Rubin had stocked each foxhole with grenades, and during the attack the following morning made his way running from foxhole to foxhole, lobbing, one after the other, grenades down upon the enemy, he became almost hysterical in his actions but he held the hill."
For this and other actions, Ted's immediate superiors recommended him for the Medal of Honor. However, before the paperwork could be processed these officers were killed, and a sergeant who might have sent the papers up refused to do so because Ted was Jewish. "Not on my watch," he said. After the Inchon invasion, the 8th Cavalry Regiment moved north towards the Chinese border, and was at the forward edge of the U.N. offensive when the Chinese Red Army entered the conflict. Ted's battalion was destroyed at the Battle of Unsan in early November 1950, while fighting a delaying action against Chinese forces swarming south from the Yalu. Hundreds of Americans were captured, among them Ted, who had manned a machine gun to hold off the enemy as the rest of the unit attempted to withdraw.
Ted found himself in the Pukchin POW camp, also known as "Death Valley," and later at Pyoktong, along with hundreds of Americans, Turks, and others. The camps were at first run by the North Koreans, then by the Chinese, whom Ted said treated them slightly better. Nevertheless, life was nightmarish for the prisoners. They were cold and hungry, and disease was rampant. "Healthy men became like babies, helpless," Ted said. "Everything was stink, death, it was terrible, terrible." Thirty to forty a day were dying. "It was hardest on the Americans who were not used to this," Ted said. "But I had a heck of a basic training from the Germans."
Ted used all the experience he had gained as a Holocaust survivor in helping keep himself and other prisoners alive. "I did it because I was an American," Ted told me, "and because it was a mitzvah. Regardless of color or nationality, they were my brothers." Food was vital for survival, so he began to steal rations from the enemy, who had little enough themselves. Fellow POW Sergeant Carl McClendon stated, "every day, when it got dark, and we went to sleep, Rubin was on his way, crawling on his stomach, jumping over fences, breaking in supply houses, while the guns were looking down on him. He tied the bottom of his fatigue pants and filled up anything he could get ahold of. He crawled back and distributed the food that he had stolen and risked his life."
Ted also did what he could to treat the sick and injured. But many were beyond saving, and diseases such as dysentery could strike anyone. "No one knew when they would die," Ted noted, "It was all random." When prisoners passed away, Ted would bury them, and recite the Kaddish. "I buried my friends, my comrades, American soldiers," Ted said, "and asked the Good Lord to let them rest in peace."
When the Chinese learned that Ted was originally from Hungary they offered to let him return to his home country, which at the time was a Soviet satellite. They promised him a job, good clothes, all the food he could want. But Ted refused to be a pawn for Chinese propaganda and turned them down. "I stood by my oath," he said. Ted stayed in the camp until the end of the war when he was released. The Army credits him with saving over 40 lives during his two and a half years of imprisonment.
When Ted returned to the United States, he finally received his U.S. citizenship. "I was the happiest man in the world," he said. He left the Army and worked at his brother Emery's store. Ted married, and he and his wife Yvonne had two children. By this time there was no talk of medals; the country was moving on, and anyway many men in Ted's original unit thought he was dead. He created a wonder at a 1980 Korean War veterans' reunion simply by showing up.
Ted's case was brought to the Army's attention in 1985, but he was ineligible to receive the award until statutory language was amended in 1996. His is one of many cases being reviewed under section 552 of the 2002 National Defense Authorization Act, which requires the military to "review the records of certain Jewish American and Hispanic American war veterans to determine if any of these veterans should be awarded the Medal of Honor." Most such awards will unfortunately be posthumous. But on September 23, President Bush will give Corporal Ted Rubin long overdue recognition for his many acts of valor in the Korean conflict. Ted will receive, in his own words, "the highest honor of the best country in the world." How does he feel about it? "It still hasn't sunk in," he said. "I'm just a country boy. It's a dream come true."
— James S. Robbins is senior fellow in national
 |
|
Medal of Honor city gets new hero By GARY ALEXANDER, Special Correspondent According Don Pettigrew, president of the Gainesville Medal of Honor Host City Program, he and his wife, Lynnette, the group's Secretary, will be in attendence as history is made next week when a new Medal of Honor recipient will be welcomed at the Congressional Medal of Honor's convention in Phoenix. Tibor Rubin, 72, of Garden Grove, Calif., will recieve the Medal of Honor at the White House Friday, and has been invited to attend the Society's annual gathering, set for Sept. 27-Oct. 1. When the President Bush drapes the Medal of Honor around Rubin's neck, a half-century injustice will be rectified and the 72-year-old Korean War hero will have defeated his last enemyŠ anti-Semitism. Rubin is one of 138 Jewish-American war veterans whose combat records have been reviewed by the Pentagon in the same process which resulted in the award of the Medal of Honor to 21 Asian-American veterans, and eight African-Americans in 1996. Ironically, Rubin's file was the largest, yet he'd never received a valor medal for his service in Korea, while every one of the other 137 men had received the Army Distinguished Service Cross, the Navy Cross or Air Force Cross. The review concluded that Rubin had indeed been recommended for the nation's highest military award, not once, but four times by two separate commanding officers for separate actions and his fellow soldiers, as well as twice for the DSC, and twice for the Silver Star. Yet Rubin left Korea in 1953 with but two Purple Hearts and a total disability rating. The reason? First Sgt. Artice V. Watson, Rubin's first shirt in I Co., Eighth Regt., First Cav. Div.; Reportedly, Watson engaged in a virulent type of hated of Jews, and according to Rubin's comrades, repeatedly ordering the young soldier on the most dangerous assignments. In affidavits filed in support of Rubin's nomination, fellow soldiers said their sergeant was allegedly a vicious anti-Semite who gave Rubin dangerous assignments in hopes of getting him killed. As the company's administrative chief, Watson (according to numerous affidavits by Rubin's comrades) was ordered to forward the recommendations for the numerous valor awards through the chain of command. Shortly after recommending him for the Medal of Honor each of the COs was killed in action. "I really believe, in my heart, that First Sgt. Watson would have jeopardized his own safety rather than assist in any way whatsoever in the awarding of the Medal to a person of Jewish descent," wrote Cpl. Harold Speakman in a notarized affidavit. As a result of such hatred, Rubin will not know which of his numerous acts of heroism has brought him the Medal of Honor until the President reads his citation in the White House this week. It could be for Rubin safely insuring the retreat for his company by single-handedly defending a hill for 24 hours against waves of North Korean soldiers. It could be for his actions when most of his regiment was wiped out, and he was the severely wounded before being captured by hordes of Chinese soldiers. It could be for his saving an estimated 30-40 fellow soldiers during 30 months in a N. Korean prisoner of war camp. Rubin repeatedly risked is life to crawl through the camp in the dead of night, stealing food from enemy supply depots for his fellow prisoners; a "crime" which would have meant his immediate execution. "He shared the food evenly among the GIs," a fellow soldier wrote. "He also took care of us, nursed us, carried us to the latrine....He did many good deeds, which he told us were mitzvahs in the Jewish tradition....He was a very religious Jew and helping his fellow men was the most important thing to him." What no doubt gave Rubin an edge in brutal and inhumane captivity was his two years in an Austrian Nazi concentration camp where he lost both parents and two of his five siblings before being liberated by the American Army. The survivors of the POW camp credited Rubin with keeping dozens of them alive, and recommended him for the Medal of Honor, Distinguished Service Cross and Silver Star over the two and a half year period. Friday's Medal presentation could be for a single act, or it could be for several heroic achievements over a days or weeks of sustained combat, or as a POW. In fact, if Rubin were to receive the Medal of Honor and all the other valor awards for which he was recommended, he would be the most highly decorated soldier in the Korean War and one of the most highly decorated in the history of the American military. Ironically, Sgt. Watson, by repeatedly ordering the young soldier into the most deadly combat situations, may have assured Rubin the very Medal he appears to have tried to deny him. |
September 19, 2005, 8:36 a.m.
An American Hero
Meet Ted Rubin.
When the White House called Corporal Tibor "Ted" Rubin to tell him he was to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor he thought it was one of his friends playing a joke. President Bush has called the 76-year-old Korean War veteran "one of the greatest Jewish soldiers America has ever known." But Ted is characteristically modest. "I was just a country boy," he told me, "but next week I'll be honored with the country's highest award. This is unbelievable."
Being awarded the Medal of Honor is another of a series of adventures in Ted Rubin's remarkable life. He was born in Hungary in 1929, and at age 15 was sent to Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria. His first day there an SS captain told the assembled, "None of you will get out of here alive." Ted turned to the man next to him and said, "Nice fellow." Ted survived the next 14 brutal months of captivity, but most of his family perished. His father died in Buchenwald. His ten-year-old sister Elonja was sent to the gas chambers at Auschwitz, and his mother Rosa, who was slated for forced labor, chose instead to face death with her daughter. Mauthausen was liberated by the U.S. 11th Armored Division on May 5, 1945. With nothing left for him in Hungary Ted emigrated to the United States. He promised himself that he would show his appreciation to the country that gave him his freedom, and saved his life.
Ted joined the Army in February 1950, and five months later landed in Korea with the 3rd battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, one of the first American units sent to help repel North Korean invasion forces. Ted was soon involved in the fighting withdrawal to the Pusan perimeter. In one engagement near Chirye, Ted's company was redeploying from one hill to another, and he volunteered to stay behind to keep the enemy guessing until the movement was completed.
As Corporal Leonard Hamm relates, "the North Koreans, thinking the hill was still occupied by a whole company, made an all out offensive with all their available troops. PFC Tibor Rubin had stocked each foxhole with grenades, and during the attack the following morning made his way running from foxhole to foxhole, lobbing, one after the other, grenades down upon the enemy, he became almost hysterical in his actions but he held the hill."
For this and other actions, Ted's immediate superiors recommended him for the Medal of Honor. However, before the paperwork could be processed these officers were killed, and a sergeant who might have sent the papers up refused to do so because Ted was Jewish. "Not on my watch," he said. After the Inchon invasion, the 8th Cavalry Regiment moved north towards the Chinese border, and was at the forward edge of the U.N. offensive when the Chinese Red Army entered the conflict. Ted's battalion was destroyed at the Battle of Unsan in early November 1950, while fighting a delaying action against Chinese forces swarming south from the Yalu. Hundreds of Americans were captured, among them Ted, who had manned a machine gun to hold off the enemy as the rest of the unit attempted to withdraw.
Ted found himself in the Pukchin POW camp, also known as "Death Valley," and later at Pyoktong, along with hundreds of Americans, Turks, and others. The camps were at first run by the North Koreans, then by the Chinese, whom Ted said treated them slightly better. Nevertheless, life was nightmarish for the prisoners. They were cold and hungry, and disease was rampant. "Healthy men became like babies, helpless," Ted said. "Everything was stink, death, it was terrible, terrible." Thirty to forty a day were dying. "It was hardest on the Americans who were not used to this," Ted said. "But I had a heck of a basic training from the Germans."
Ted used all the experience he had gained as a Holocaust survivor in helping keep himself and other prisoners alive. "I did it because I was an American," Ted told me, "and because it was a mitzvah. Regardless of color or nationality, they were my brothers." Food was vital for survival, so he began to steal rations from the enemy, who had little enough themselves. Fellow POW Sergeant Carl McClendon stated, "every day, when it got dark, and we went to sleep, Rubin was on his way, crawling on his stomach, jumping over fences, breaking in supply houses, while the guns were looking down on him. He tied the bottom of his fatigue pants and filled up anything he could get ahold of. He crawled back and distributed the food that he had stolen and risked his life."
Ted also did what he could to treat the sick and injured. But many were beyond saving, and diseases such as dysentery could strike anyone. "No one knew when they would die," Ted noted, "It was all random." When prisoners passed away, Ted would bury them, and recite the Kaddish. "I buried my friends, my comrades, American soldiers," Ted said, "and asked the Good Lord to let them rest in peace."
When the Chinese learned that Ted was originally from Hungary they offered to let him return to his home country, which at the time was a Soviet satellite. They promised him a job, good clothes, all the food he could want. But Ted refused to be a pawn for Chinese propaganda and turned them down. "I stood by my oath," he said. Ted stayed in the camp until the end of the war when he was released. The Army credits him with saving over 40 lives during his two and a half years of imprisonment.
When Ted returned to the United States, he finally received his U.S. citizenship. "I was the happiest man in the world," he said. He left the Army and worked at his brother Emery's store. Ted married, and he and his wife Yvonne had two children. By this time there was no talk of medals; the country was moving on, and anyway many men in Ted's original unit thought he was dead. He created a wonder at a 1980 Korean War veterans' reunion simply by showing up.
Ted's case was brought to the Army's attention in 1985, but he was ineligible to receive the award until statutory language was amended in 1996. His is one of many cases being reviewed under section 552 of the 2002 National Defense Authorization Act, which requires the military to "review the records of certain Jewish American and Hispanic American war veterans to determine if any of these veterans should be awarded the Medal of Honor." Most such awards will unfortunately be posthumous. But on September 23, President Bush will give Corporal Ted Rubin long overdue recognition for his many acts of valor in the Korean conflict. Ted will receive, in his own words, "the highest honor of the best country in the world." How does he feel about it? "It still hasn't sunk in," he said. "I'm just a country boy. It's a dream come true."
— James S. Robbins is senior fellow in
national-security affairs at the American Foreign
Policy Council, a trustee for the
Leaders for Liberty
Foundation, and an NRO contributor.
* * *
By PAUL CHAVEZ, Associated Press Writer
(Updated Friday, September 16, 2005, 6:25 PM)
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Tibor Rubin kept his promise to join the U.S. Army after American troops late in World War II freed him from the Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria.
A Hungarian Jew, Rubin immigrated to New York after the war, joined the Army and fought as an infantryman on the frontlines in the Korean War. In 1951, Chinese troops captured Cpl. Rubin and other U.S. soldiers and he became a prisoner of war for 2 1/2 years.
Drawing from his experience at the Nazi concentration camp, Rubin daily risked his own life by stealing food from his captors and provided hope and crude medical care that kept more than 40 U.S. soldiers alive.The exception was Rubin.
Almost
every evening, he would sneak out of the camp to steal
food
from the Chinese and North Korean supply depots, knowing that he would be
shot if caught.
"Every day, when it got dark, and we went to sleep, Rubin was on his way, crawling on his stomach, jumping over fences, breaking in supply houses, while the guns were looking down on him. He tied the bottom of his fatigue pants and filled up anything he could get ahold of," a fellow soldier, Sgt. Carl McClendon, said in an affidavit.
After a relentless campaign by grateful comrades and a group of Jewish war veterans, President Bush on Sept. 23 will bestow the Medal of Honor on Rubin.
"I was only staying alive to get that medal and now I'm going to enjoy it," said the 76-year-old Rubin, who now lives in Garden Grove.
He was nominated four times for the Medal of Honor, the nation's highest recognition for bravery in battle, but it is believed that the paperwork was never submitted because a member of his chain of command discriminated against him for being Jewish and born in Hungary.
Rubin, who is called "Ted" by friends, said he was raised by a religious mother who instilled in him the importance of doing good deeds.
When he was at the Chinese prisoners' camp known as "Death Valley," Rubin said he would pray in Hebrew for the U.S. soldiers - about 40 each day - who died in the winter. He also took care of soldiers suffering from dysentery or pneumonia in the freezing weather.
Rubin called concentration camp a good "basic training" for being a POW and applied lifesaving lessons he learned there.
For example, Rubin said he would retrieve maggots from the prisoners' latrine and apply them to the infected wounds of his comrades to remove gangrene.
"When they came to the flesh, the red meat, I would take them off," Rubin said. "This was their antibiotic."
Fellow POW Sgt. Leo Cormier said Rubin gave a lot of GIs the courage to live by his words and actions.
"I once saw him spend the whole night picking lice off a guy who didn't have the strength to lift his head," Cormier told the Army. "What man would do that? ... But Ted did things for his fellow men that made him a hero in my book."
He also showed bravery in the battlefield.
In October 1950, Rubin defended a hill by himself manning a machine gun in which three other soldiers had already died while firing. He also later tossed grenades down foxholes on advancing North Koreans, allowing other soldiers to flee.
As a POW, Rubin turned down repeated offers from the Chinese to be returned to his native Hungary.
"I told them I couldn't go back because I was in the U.S. Army and I wouldn't leave my American brothers because they needed me here," Rubin said.
Rubin, who has been married for 42 years to his wife, Yvonne, ranked coming to the United States as his greatest achievement in life.
Rubin said his medal belongs to all the prisoners of war who died and other soldiers.
"It belongs to all the soldiers in all of our armed forces who died for their country and all the people in Iraq and Afghanistan and all who are in harm's way," Rubin said. "It's for all of us."
Rubin wouldn't say anything negative about the Army and his long wait for the Medal of Honor.
In affidavits filed in support of Rubin's nomination, fellow soldiers said their sergeant was allegedly a vicious anti-Semite who gave Rubin dangerous assignments in hopes of getting him killed.
Others, however, took up the cause on behalf of Rubin.
In 1988, the Jewish War Veterans of the United States took up Rubin's cause and urged Congress to recognize his efforts and the prejudice against him.
In a related move, U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Florida, introduced the "Leonard Kravitz Jewish War Veterans Act of 2001" to force the Pentagon to review the records of Jewish veterans who may have been denied the Medal of Honor because they were Jews.
The bill was named after Pfc. Kravitz, 21, who during the Korean War manned a machine gun to cover retreating U.S. troops. His body was found slumped over the machine gun with several dead enemy soldiers lying nearby. Kravitz posthumously received the Distinguished Service Cross, the Army's second-highest honor.
The records of about 150 Jews who received the Distinguished Service Cross remain under review, said Bob Zweiman, past national commander of the Jewish War Veterans.
The affidavits from Corporal Rubin's fellow prisoners support Sergeant Cormier's account. Fellow soldiers recalled how Corporal Rubin stole from the Chinese and North Korean guards, tying off the bottoms of his pants and stuffing the legs with leftover grain from the camp's mills. "He'd mix the flour with water and make little cakes," Sergeant Cormier, who said he weighed 80 pounds upon his release from the camp, recalled. "It tasted like manna from heaven."
When his fellow soldiers, devastated by dysentery, could no longer muster the will to eat, Corporal Rubin force-fed them. When his fellow soldiers were filthy and injured, he bathed them and cleansed their wounds. When his fellow soldiers were infested with lice, he picked the parasites out of their hair