Holocaust survivor given Medal of Honor
Saved dozens of lives in Korean War
By Josh White
The Washington Post
WASHINGTON - Tibor Rubin looked down at his emaciated body and promised himself that if God could save him from a Nazi concentration camp, he would kiss the feet of his liberators and join them in their fight.
Rubin was 15 when U.S. soldiers opened the camp at Mauthausen, Austria.
More than a half-century later, President Bush bestowed the nation's highest military honor Friday on Rubin, who saved the lives of dozens of fellow American soldiers during the Korean War. Rubin used his survival skills from the brutal concentration camp to help nurture his U.S. comrades in a communist prisoner-of-war camp in the early 1950s, the White House said.
Rubin, 76, once a corporal, received the Medal of Honor for a series of courageous acts while he was fighting in Korea as a member of the 1st Cavalry Division. He is credited with going back to save a soldier who had been left for dead on the battlefield and single-handedly staving off a relentless attack on his unit.
The Hungarian-born Jew's opportunity to receive the medal decades ago was thwarted by a discriminatory sergeant, officials said. Rubin said he often was given the most dangerous assignments and quipped that he was referred to so often by a derogatory phrase that he nearly forgot his own name.
But the Army has been re-evaluating cases of heroism, and officers discovered Rubin and his story.
In the Korean War prisoner camp, Rubin said he stole food from his captors to feed his sick friends and nurtured the weak through the hardest times.
"I tried to brainwash them, telling them they had to stay strong, not to forget their parents, that they have to get home and to not give up," Rubin said. "It wasn't easy on them. For someone that young, it's a nightmare. But I had been through it once, and that's why I came through and helped them.
"My mother used to tell us that we're all brothers and sisters, and in the Jewish religion, if you do a mitzvah - nothing but a good deed - that's better than if you go to temple and beat your head and ask the Lord to help you," he said. "I helped people because I could."
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