Sydney Warner
Henry
World Literature
28 February 2012
Tibor Rubin
Born June 18, 1929 to a Jewish family in Hungary, Tibor Rubin and his family didn’t stand a chance in what evil was to occur in the years to come. In his years growing up Hitler was rising to power at frightful a frightful speed. On March 19, 1994 Germany invaded Hungary because of their attempts to withdraw from the war. Soon enough at age thirteen Rubin was sent to the Mauthausen Nazi concentration camp in Austria, along with his parents and two sisters. Like many other Jewish families living under the rule of the Nazis, Rubin lost is family. Approximately 150,000 victims were killed at the Mauthausen concentration camp
After living in a concentration camp for two years, performing labor for the SS (Hitler’s private army) days on end and being starved, Tibor Rubin was freed from the camp. The United States troops liberated the camp in 1945. Rubin, then fifteen, made a promise to move to America and join the army. “I was going to go the the U.S. and join the U.S. army to show my appreciation...It was my wish to fight alongside them,” (Rubin). Rubin not only kept his promise but he became a recipient of the highest military honor, The Medal of Honor. After World War II Tibor Rubin immigrated to New York. Ted, the nickname given to him while in the army, worked as a butcher and shoemaker before joining the United States military on February 13, 1950. He tried to enlist in 1949 but was turned away because he failed the English portion on the exam. Soon after he passed was sent off to fight on the frontlines of the Korean War. Ted fought as an infantry man in the war.
Captured by Chinese troops in 1951, Corporal Rubin and other U.S. soldiers became prisoners of war in North Korea for thirty months. For Ted, being a prisoner of war was all too familiar. He had been one at such a young age and this was no different. “Ted called the concentration camp good “basic training” for being a POW and...