Non­fic­tion

Sin­gle Hand­ed: The Inspir­ing True Sto­ry of Tibor Ted­dy” Rubin — Holo­caust Sur­vivor, Kore­an War Hero, and Medal of Hon­or Recipient

  • Review
By – May 19, 2015

Film­mak­er and crit­ic Daniel M. Cohen pro­vides a riv­et­ing account of one of the most coura­geous heroes of the Kore­an War. What makes this book so dif­fer­ent from many biogra­phies of war heroes is that Tibor Ted­dy” Rubin was not an Amer­i­can cit­i­zen when he enlist­ed to fight in Korea; rather, Tibor was a sur­vivor of Mau­thausen, where he spent four­teen months work­ing as a slave labor­er. Togeth­er with his broth­er Emery, he was lib­er­at­ed by Gen­er­al Patton’s 11th Armored Divi­sion. When the Amer­i­can army found Tibor, they found him racked with fever, dehy­drat­ed, ema­ci­at­ed, and deliri­ous. Army nurs­es hooked him up to an intra­venous bot­tle, and grad­u­al­ly he was brought back to health. Tibor, like numer­ous oth­er vic­tims of the Nazis, was moved to a DP camp and was sub­se­quent­ly was able to migrate to the Unit­ed States, pen­ni­less, with­out any under­stand­ing of Eng­lish, and grate­ful that he was able sur­vive the hor­rors of the Holocaust.

Tibor Rubin was born to an Ortho­dox Jew­ish fam­i­ly in Hun­gary. His par­ents and a sis­ter were mur­dered by the Nazis and he sur­vived along with his broth­er, half-broth­er and two sis­ters. As a teenag­er thrust into the hell of Mau­thausen, Tibor sur­vived with wit, cun­ning, and an abil­i­ty to make the best of the worst con­di­tions. When he was lib­er­at­ed, Tibor was extreme­ly grate­ful to the Unit­ed States for sav­ing his life and the rem­nants of his fam­i­ly. It was this grat­i­tude that led him to vol­un­teer to fight in Korea though he was not a cit­i­zen and could bare­ly read English.

Cohen describes the hard­ships that Tibor faced as a Jew in the mil­i­tary. His sergeant, a red­neck,” hat­ed Jews and not only made life mis­er­able for Tibor, but once in Korea, sin­gled Tibor out for the most dan­ger­ous mis­sions. It became obvi­ous to many of Tibor’s fel­low sol­diers that the Sergeant’s ani­mus towards him was so intense that he was send­ing him into harm’s way to be killed. Tibor, how­ev­er, had grit and courage and did not com­plain about his mal­treat­ment. What fol­lowed was a series of acts that would at the age of 76 earn him the Medal of Honor.

As Tibor’s unit was pulling out from a hill under fire from the ene­my, his sergeant left him alone to pro­tect the hill until rein­force­ments returned. Left alone, Tibor sin­gle-hand­ed­ly defend­ed the hill against an onslaught of ene­my sol­diers, killing hun­dreds in the process. Tibor’s action so impressed the unit’s com­mand­ing offi­cer that he imme­di­ate­ly rec­om­mend­ed Tibor for the Medal of Hon­or and ordered his sergeant to do the paper­work. The anti-Semit­ic sergeant nev­er fol­lowed the order, and the com­mand­ing offi­cer was killed in action. Sub­se­quent­ly, Tibor braved sniper fire to save a wound­ed com­rade, and com­man­deered a machine gun after its crew was killed, pro­ceed­ing to fire at the ene­my, killing many North Kore­an sol­diers. Tibor also cap­tured sev­er­al hun­dred North Kore­an sol­diers before he was even­tu­al­ly caught and held cap­tive by the Chi­nese for two-and-a-half years. As a POW, Tibor used his expe­ri­ence at Mau­thausen to help fel­low GI’s to sur­vive, includ­ing steal­ing food from the ene­my to pro­vide food for his fel­low prisoners.

Tibor returned to the Unit­ed States in 1953 fol­low­ing a pris­on­er exchange with the Chi­nese. Tibor would even­tu­al­ly mar­ry and raise chil­dren, but rarely talked about his expe­ri­ences in Korea. When a num­ber of his fel­low sol­diers learned that Tibor was alive and had not earned the Medal of Hon­or, they enlist­ed the aid of Tibor’s com­rades, politi­cians, and Jew­ish orga­ni­za­tions to help him receive the Medal of Honor.

Cohen describes in detail the red-tape,” the anti-Semi­tism and the resis­tance of the army bureau­cra­cy in thwart­ing Tibor from receiv­ing the medal. In 2005 Tibor was invit­ed to the White House to be hon­ored by Pres­i­dent George W. Bush for val­or that went beyond the call of duty.” Tibor will always remain the only sur­vivor of the Holo­caust to receive the Medal of Honor.

Jack Fis­chel is pro­fes­sor emer­i­tus of his­to­ry at Millersville Uni­ver­si­ty, Millersville, PA and author of The Holo­caust (Green­wood Press) and His­tor­i­cal Dic­tio­nary of the Holo­caust (Row­man and Littlefield).

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