The Medal of Honor recipient who first survived the Holocaust: the story of Tibor Rubin
On International Holocaust Remembrance Day, we look back at the story of Tibor Rubin, who survived a Nazi death camp as a boy and later won the Medal of Honor.
BY PATTY NIEBERG | PUBLISHED JAN 26, 2024 7:18 PM EST
When Tibor Rubin accepted the Medal of Honor from President George Bush in 2005, it had been half a century since he’d walked free from a Chinese prison camp in the Korean War.
“I was just a little Jew coming back from the most terrible place,” Rubin said in a video interview recorded soon. “How I made it, the lord only knows. I didn’t even know because I was so many times supposed to die over there and I’m still here.”
Rubin’s Medal of Honor was awarded for both his ferocity in combat and his determination to keep others alive during more than 2 years as a POW.
But the will he showed to fight and survive as an American soldier was formed years before, as a Jewish child who was caught in, but survived, the Holocaust.
https://taskandpurpose.com/history/holocaust-survivor-medal-of-honor/