Status
Call number
Collections
Publication
Description
"From a World War II concentration camp to the Korean War to the White House, this is the incredible story of Tibor "Teddy" Rubin, the only Holocaust survivor ever to receive a Medal of Honor... In 1944, a thirteen-year-old Hungarian boy named Tibor Rubin was captured by the Nazis and sent to the notorious Mauthausen concentration camp. The teenager endured its horrors for more than a year. After surviving the Holocaust, he arrived penniless in America, barely speaking English. In 1950, Tibor volunteered for service in the Korean War. After acts of heroism that included single-handedly defending a hill against an onslaught of enemy soldiers, braving sniper fire to rescue a wounded comrade, and commandeering a machine gun after its crew was killed, he was captured. As a POW, Tibor called on his experience in Mauthausen to help fellow GIs survive two and half years of captivity. Tibor returned from Korea in 1953, but it wasn't until 2005-at age 76-that he was invited to the White House, where he received the Medal of Honor from President George W. Bush. It had taken over half a century for Tibor's adopted homeland to recognize this Jewish immigrant for acts of valor that went "beyond the call of duty." But when it did, the former Hungarian refugee became the only survivor of the Holocaust to have earned America's highest military distinction. Drawing on eyewitness accounts and extensive interviews, author Daniel M. Cohen presents the inspiring story of Tibor "Teddy" Rubin for the first time in its entirety and gives us a stirring portrait of a true hero. INCLUDES PHOTOS"--… (more)
Language
User reviews
He was sent to Korea. He had an anti- Semitic master sergeant who wanted him dead and assigned him every dangerous duty. On two occasions officers said his actions should get him Medals of Honor. One officers died soon after, the other also died and the anti- Semitic master sergeant ‘forgot.’ And so did the US Army for 55 years.
In one battle he defended a mountain of ammunition against an assault by overwhelming numbers of North Korean soldiers, when he was alone. During another battle he manned a machine gun after three previous gunners had died, until he ran out of ammunition, allowing the remnants of his unit to retreat. Wounded, he was captured by the Chinese.
Then Rubin was put in a Chinese POW camp, where his experiences at Mauthausen, kept him and many other men there alive. The Chinese tried to send him back to Hungary, but he knew the soldiers in Camp 5 needed him, and he didn’t want to go back to Hungary, in spite of the fact that he was not yet an American citizen.
There were two fellow soldiers who championed Rubin getting a Medal of Honor. One was in the POW camp with Rubin. The other was the other master sergeant in Rubin’s unit, who lives twenty miles away from where I live in Upstate New York.
This is an exciting book that I could not put down. We live in a better world for having had Tibor Rubin in it. I haven’t seen or read Unbroken or The Boys in the Boat, yet, but it’s hard to imagine that this isn’t at least as exciting. I borrowed this from my public library, the same day President Obama finally gave a Medal of Honor to Henry Johnson, of Albany, and I thought it was this Jewish soldier, but it was another Jewish soldier. (It was William Shemin, who, like Johnson, served in World War I.) I started and finished this book on 6/9/15.