WillBrink
12-11-15, 11:26
A hero passes. A real hero, not the BS that passes for a hero today. Tibor is the only holocaust survivor to be given the MOH for deeds done in Korea. I can't imagine his strength or will and character that drove such a person after all he'd been through. A man who obviously understood the value of what Freedom and Liberty means, now so taken for granted.
Tibor Rubin, a Hungarian-born Holocaust survivor who joined the U.S. Army out of gratitude for his liberation from the Nazis, then earned the Medal of Honor for heroism in the Korean War, died of natural causes Saturday in Garden Grove. He was 86.
Rubin had a Hungarian accent and a Jackie Mason-like sense of humor, said his nephew, Robert Huntly. Rubin's parents and younger sister were killed by the Nazis, and wounds and starvation had left him disabled. But his comic demeanor betrayed little trace of this history, Huntly said.
After his military service, Rubin worked for years at his brother's Long Beach liquor store and said little of his wartime deeds, which included defending a hill single-handedly for 24 hours and saving the lives of as many as 40 of his fellow POWs in a camp in North Korea, according to his biographer Daniel M. Cohen.
Decades later, supporters successfully argued the Jewish corporal had been denied recognition during the war because of the anti-Semitic leanings of a superior. Rubin was called to the White House in 2005, 55 years after his combat service — to receive the medal from President George W. Bush. An Army spokeswoman said at the time that the government's investigation had found evidence that wartime papers recommending that he receive citations for bravery had been tossed out.
Rubin later showed an L.A. Times writer a photo of Bush giving him the medal. It depicted "the little midget and the nice-looking guy," he joked.
Tibor "Teddy" Rubin was born June 18, 1929, in Paszto, Hungary. His father, Ferenc, and stepmother, Rosa, tried to send him to Switzerland to save him from the Nazis. But the 13-year-old Rubin was caught at the Italian border and sent to the notorious Mauthausen slave labor camp in Austria, Cohen said.
Cont:
http://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-tibor-rubin-20151208-story.html
Tibor Rubin, a Hungarian-born Holocaust survivor who joined the U.S. Army out of gratitude for his liberation from the Nazis, then earned the Medal of Honor for heroism in the Korean War, died of natural causes Saturday in Garden Grove. He was 86.
Rubin had a Hungarian accent and a Jackie Mason-like sense of humor, said his nephew, Robert Huntly. Rubin's parents and younger sister were killed by the Nazis, and wounds and starvation had left him disabled. But his comic demeanor betrayed little trace of this history, Huntly said.
After his military service, Rubin worked for years at his brother's Long Beach liquor store and said little of his wartime deeds, which included defending a hill single-handedly for 24 hours and saving the lives of as many as 40 of his fellow POWs in a camp in North Korea, according to his biographer Daniel M. Cohen.
Decades later, supporters successfully argued the Jewish corporal had been denied recognition during the war because of the anti-Semitic leanings of a superior. Rubin was called to the White House in 2005, 55 years after his combat service — to receive the medal from President George W. Bush. An Army spokeswoman said at the time that the government's investigation had found evidence that wartime papers recommending that he receive citations for bravery had been tossed out.
Rubin later showed an L.A. Times writer a photo of Bush giving him the medal. It depicted "the little midget and the nice-looking guy," he joked.
Tibor "Teddy" Rubin was born June 18, 1929, in Paszto, Hungary. His father, Ferenc, and stepmother, Rosa, tried to send him to Switzerland to save him from the Nazis. But the 13-year-old Rubin was caught at the Italian border and sent to the notorious Mauthausen slave labor camp in Austria, Cohen said.
Cont:
http://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-tibor-rubin-20151208-story.html