Tibor Rubin had already survived one prison camp when his captors offered him a way out of another. The Chinese could send him back to Hungary, where he’d been born. Behind him were American prisoners struggling against hunger, sickness, and the temptation to stop trying.
He stayed.
His Medal of Honor citation records that decision alongside the nights he slipped out to find food for men who might otherwise have died.
Years earlier, Rubin had been a Jewish teenager imprisoned at Mauthausen in Austria. American soldiers liberated the camp in May 1945. He remembered their compassion toward survivors who were filthy, sick, and barely alive.
From the U.S. Army:
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.
The men who reached him gave him a future he’d had little reason to expect.
Gratitude became a promise. Rubin wanted to move to the United States and join its Army. He arrived in 1948 and enlisted in 1950, eventually serving in Korea with the 8th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division. He fought for his adopted country before becoming an American citizen.
His combat courage was extraordinary. During one withdrawal, he defended a hill alone, slowing the enemy while his unit escaped. Later, at Unsan, he kept a machine gun firing after its previous gunners became casualties. Wounded and captured, he entered a different struggle for survival.
From the U.S. Army:
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.
Captivity demanded more than evidence. A sick prisoner needed someone willing to feed him, clean his wounds, and insist tomorrow was still worth reaching. Rubin had learned how quickly despair could consume a person. Around him were men who needed help to resist it.
From the U.S. Army:
In some ways the camp was like Mauthausen. Hunger, filth and disease were rampant. Most of the Soldiers either gave up or would only help themselves. The exception was Rubin, who used the knowledge that kept him alive during the Holocaust to help himself and his fellow Soldiers.
Almost every night Rubin snuck out of the camp, but instead of making a run for it, he stole food from the Chinese and North Korean supply depots to bring back to his fellow prisoners and cared for the sick.
He kept his comrades’ spirits up by telling them, “Eat. Drink. Your family is waiting for you. You will go home. This will pass.”
When the Chinese found out Rubin was originally from Hungary, they offered to release him and repatriate him back to his native land. He refused, saying he was an American.
His commitment saved the lives of at least 40 American Soldiers.
At night, he broke into enemy storehouses and gardens, risking torture or death if caught. He brought food back to starving prisoners and provided medical care and encouragement. The official citation credits his efforts with saving as many as 40 fellow captives.
Forty is a number small enough to consider one person at a time. Each man had someone who might receive a letter, hear his voice again, or hold him when he returned. Rubin couldn’t know every future his actions protected. He could recognize the hungry man beside him.
Leo Cromier was among those who remembered that care. When dysentery left him desperately ill, Rubin nursed him. Other prisoners recalled food smuggled past guards and wounds tended with whatever could be found. James Bourgeois credited Rubin with helping save both his infected arm and his life.
Rubin’s faith helped give those duties meaning. He described helping his fellow prisoners as a mitzvah, a commandment from God. He reminded men that their families were waiting and that they could still return home. The kindness American troops had shown him continued through the care he gave others.
Such work rarely produces a single dramatic moment. It requires returning to someone’s needs when exhaustion makes attending to your own difficult enough.
His service also carried the wound of antisemitism. An Army account describes a platoon sergeant who assigned Rubin dangerous duties and refused to submit a Medal of Honor recommendation. Recognition would take decades, long after the fighting and the prison camps had become memories.
On September 23, 2005, Rubin finally received the Medal of Honor from George Bush. Rubin’s wife, Yvonne, and family attended, along with men who understood what they owed him. More than half a century after Korea, the country formally recognized the courage that had helped bring them home.
I keep returning to his chance to leave. A survivor of Mauthausen could hardly need another lesson in what captivity might cost. Rubin knew, and still chose the men beside him. His promise to repay the Americans who saved him became food in another prisoner’s hands, care at a sick man’s side, and hope carried through another night.
Tibor Rubin’s Medal of Honor citation:
Rank and organization: Corporal, U.S. Army, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division. Born: 18 June, 1929, Hungary. Citation: Corporal Tibor Rubin distinguished himself by extraordinary heroism during the period from July 23, 1950, to April 20, 1953, while serving as a rifleman with Company I, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division in the Republic of Korea.
While his unit was retreating to the Pusan Perimeter, Corporal Rubin was assigned to stay behind to keep open the vital Taegu-Pusan Road link used by his withdrawing unit. During the ensuing battle, overwhelming numbers of North Korean troops assaulted a hill defended solely by Corporal Rubin. He inflicted a staggering number of casualties on the attacking force during his personal 24-hour battle, single-handedly slowing the enemy advance and allowing the 8th Cavalry Regiment to complete its withdrawal successfully.
Following the breakout from the Pusan Perimeter, the 8 th Cavalry Regiment proceeded northward and advanced into North Korea. During the advance, he helped capture several hundred North Korean soldiers. On October 30, 1950, Chinese forces attacked his unit at Unsan, North Korea, during a massive nighttime assault. That night and throughout the next day, he manned a .30 caliber machine gun at the south end of the unit's line after three previous gunners became casualties. He continued to man his machine gun until his ammunition was exhausted.
His determined stand slowed the pace of the enemy advance in his sector, permitting the remnants of his unit to retreat southward. As the battle raged, Corporal Rubin was severely wounded and captured by the Chinese. Choosing to remain in the prison camp despite offers from the Chinese to return him to his native Hungary, Corporal Rubin disregarded his own personal safety and immediately began sneaking out of the camp at night in search of food for his comrades. Breaking into enemy food storehouses and gardens, he risked certain torture or death if caught.
Corporal Rubin provided not only food to the starving Soldiers, but also desperately needed medical care and moral support for the sick and wounded of the POW camp. His brave, selfless efforts were directly attributed to saving the lives of as many as forty of his fellow prisoners.
Corporal Rubin's gallant actions in close contact with the enemy and unyielding courage and bravery while a prisoner of war are in the highest traditions of military service and reflect great credit upon himself and the United States Army.
