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Tibor "Ted" Rubin (born June 18 , 1929 ) a Hungarian -born Holocaust survivor who immigrated to the United States in 1948 , was awarded the Medal Of Honor for his actions in the Korean War by President George W. Bush on September 23 , 2005. Rubin is a resident of Garden Grove, California . Rubin was repeatedly nominated for various medals and awards, but was overlooked because of systematic Anti-Semitism by his superiors. According to the '' Washington Post '', "in affidavits filed in support of Rubin's nomination, fellow soldiers said their sergeant was an anti-Semite who gave Rubin dangerous assignments in hopes of getting him killed." CHILDHOOD IN HUNGARY Rubin was born in Paszto , a Hungarian Shtetl of 120 Jewish families, the son of a shoemaker and one of six children. At age 13, he was transported to the Mauthausen Concentration Camp in Austria and liberated two years later by American troops. Both his parents and two sisters perished in the Holocaust. IMMIGRATION TO THE UNITED STATES Rubin came to the United States in 1948, settled in New York and worked first as a shoemaker and then as a butcher. In 1949, he tried to enlist in the U.S. Army, both as an assumed shortcut to citizenship and, he hoped, to attend the Army’s butcher school in Chicago. Knowing hardly any English, he flunked the language test but tried again in 1950 and passed, with some judicious help from two fellow test-takers. ANTISEMITISM IN THE ARMY By July of that year, Pfc. Rubin found himself fighting on the frontlines in Korea with I Company, Eighth Regiment, ’s "The Young Lions." Watson, who according to lengthy affidavits submitted by nearly a dozen men who served under him — mostly self-described "country boys" from the South and Midwest — was a vicious anti-Semite, who consistently "volunteered" Rubin for the most dangerous patrols and missions. In one such mission, according to the testimonies of his comrades, Rubin secured a route of retreat for his company by single-handedly defending a hill for 24 hours against waves of North Korean soldiers. For these and other harrowing acts of bravery, Rubin was three times recommended for the Medal of Honor by two of his commanding officers. Both were shortly afterward killed in action, but not before ordering Watson to initiate the necessary paperwork to secure the medals for Rubin. Some of Rubin’s fellow GIs were present when Watson was ordered to seek the medals, and all are convinced that he deliberately ignored the orders. "I really believe, in my heart, that First Sgt. Watson would have jeopardized his own safety rather than assist in any way whatsoever in the awarding of the medal to a person of Jewish descent," wrote Cpl. Harold Speakman in a notarized affidavit. CHINESE POW CAMP Toward the end of October 1950 , massive Chinese troop concentrations crossed the border into North Korea and attacked the unprepared Americans. After most of his regiment had been wiped out, the severely wounded Rubin was captured and spent the next 30 months in a prisoner of war camp. Faced with constant hunger, filth and disease, most of the GIs simply gave up. "No one wanted to help anyone. Everybody was for himself," wrote Sgt. Leo A, Cormier Jr., a fellow prisoner. The exception was Rubin. Almost every evening, he would sneak out of the camp to steal food from the Chinese and North Korean supply depots, knowing that he would be shot if caught. "He shared the food evenly among the GIs," Cormier wrote. "He also took care of us, nursed us, carried us to the latrine....He did many good deeds, which he told us were mitzvahs in the Jewish tradition....He was a very religious Jew and helping his fellow men was the most important thing to him." The survivors of the camp credited Rubin with keeping them alive. CITATION Source: http://www.army.mil/medalofhonor/rubin/citation/index.html
JEWISH VETERANS The Jewish War Veterans Act has established a review of Medals of Honor nominations for servicemen of the Jewish faith or extraction whose nominations may have been derailed because of anti-Semitism. The bill has been officially named the `Leonard Kravitz Jewish War Veterans Act of 2001' after another Jewish Korean War veteran in the US Army. SEE ALSO EXTERNAL LINKS
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