July 31, 2024 • 27 mins
Tibor Rubin is the only Holocaust survivor to win the Medal of Honor. Sent to a concentration camp at the age of 14, Tibor swore that if he lived, he would become an American GI. At 20, he joined the U.S. Army and shipped off to Korea. His acts of heroism on the battlefield were epic, and then he selflessly protected other soldiers at a brutal POW camp. His story is about more than courage and bravery. It’s about compassion. And the truth that, sometimes, hope is the most powerful defense we have.
Special thanks to the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, the Buffalo Jewish Federation and the book "Single Handed: The Inspiring True Story of Tibor "Teddy" Rubin, Holocaust Survivor, Korean War Hero, and Medal of Honor Recipient".
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
It was nineteen fifty one, and a young American serviceman
named Johnny lay dying on the dirty floor of a
mud walled hut. He was a prisoner of war, one
of thousands of US soldiers who had the bad luck
to be here, a Chinese run camp in the far
north of Korea. Death was everywhere in the camp, death
from dysentery and pneumonia and starvation, deaths from untreated battle
(00:46):
wounds left to faster, and deaths like Johnny, a soldier
exhausted after months of abuse and captivity, unable to eat
or move, slowly abandoning the will to live. The other
POWs called it ghivapitis. There was someone else in the
room with Johnny, a scrawny twenty one year old soldier
(01:08):
with a thick head of hair and an even thicker
Eastern European accent. He knelt beside Johnny and said, the
Red Cross has just dropped off their newest medicine. I'll
give it to you, but in turn, you have to
pull yourself together. You can't give up. Then he gave
Johnny a small brown pill. The other prisoners in the
(01:30):
camp had noticed this man with the medicine. Something was
different about him. When they couldn't stand up and were
lying in their own filth, he washed them clean. He
picked the light off them when they couldn't do it themselves.
He sneaked bits of food to men who were dying
of hunger, and he made them smile. He cracked jokes
and clowned around. He reminded them of the great life
(01:51):
waiting for them back home in America. They just had
to live long enough to make it there. That guy
with the accent wasn't a doctor, or a clergyman, or
even an officer. He didn't have any influence or special training.
What he did have was experience, experience in a camp
even worse than this one, a place he'd lived when
(02:13):
he was just fourteen years old, a Nazi death can
I'm Malcolm Gladwell and this is Medal of Honor Stories
of Courage. The Medal of Honor is the highest military
decoration in the United States, awarded for gallantry and bravery
in combat at the risk of life, above and beyond
(02:33):
the call of duty. Each candidate must be approved all
the way up the chain of command, from the supervisory
officer in the field to the White House This show
is about those heroes, what they did, what it meant,
and what their stories tell us about the nature of
courage and sacrifice. Today's episode is about Taibor Rubin, the
(02:56):
only Holocaust survivor to win the Medal of Honor. His
story is about more than courage and bravery. It's about
compassion and the simple truth that sometimes hope is the
most powerful defense we have. Tybar Ruben was born in
(03:30):
nineteen twenty nine in a small town in Hungary. He
had a loving family with four older siblings and a
little sister. He adored parents, who took care of him
a nice house. As a kid, he was always getting
into scrapes, playing soccer with his big brother Emory, typical
kid stuff. It wasn't fancy, but life was pretty good,
(03:52):
except that Taibor was Jewish and the Third Reich was
on the rise in nearby Germany. By the end of
the nineteen thirties, the Hungarian government had begun emulating the Nazis,
denying Jews equal rights under the law. There were jobs
they couldn't hold. I didn't marry Christians. Then in nineteen forty
(04:12):
Hungary formally joined the Axis Alliance. Even so, Hungarian Jews
were more protected than Jews in other access countries. The
government refused to deport its Jewish citizens to concentration camps,
despite pressure from their Nazi allies, so the Ruben family
felt relatively safe in their home country, even as things turned.
(04:35):
After all, Tiber's father was a decorated soldier of the
First World War. He was a patriot. More than that,
the Rubens believed in the essential goodness of people. They
taught Tibor and his siblings to act with compassion, even
when everything in his life argued against it. Tiber never
let go of that lesson. Here he is talking about
(04:58):
them in that super thick Hungarian accent.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
I told you about I might ever seen used to
all these stylars. Don't say anything bad about anybody. You
don't know anything good. You don't ever hurt anybody because
maybe we have a different religion. But according to the
good Lord that's your brothers.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
Everything changed. In March of nineteen forty four, the Nazis
seized power in Hungary. Almost immediately, plans were drawn up
for the transportation of the country's Jews, about half a
million people, to extermination camps. The Hungarian authorities didn't stand
in the way of the plan, and as the Nazis
began rounding up Jews or just killing them on the spot,
(05:45):
it became clear that the world wasn't working according to
the Reuben family values. Soon Taibar was hearing whispered conversations
between his parents. Refugees were coming through their little village
on the run from the Nazis. The world was getting darker.
Emory was twenty, and their parents worried he would be
(06:06):
pressed into military service, so this sent him across the
border to Czechoslovakia, where an aunt lived. She had arranged
for Emory to hide with a friend who was a gentile.
Tiber worshiped his brother and was paniced to watch him go,
but Emory promised Tiber he'd be back soon. Just a
few months later, a group of Polish men were passing
(06:28):
through town on the run for Switzerland. Tiber's parents met
with the men and made a wrenching decision Tiber should
leave with them. He had to try to escape what
was coming. They sent their son off with a group
of total strangers. They were that desperate to save him.
Tiber was fourteen. After days of trekking, the group reached
(06:53):
the Swiss border, only to be captured by the Nazis.
They were sent to a concentration camp named Matausen in Austria.
It looked like a stone fortress on a hill. It
had been constructed carefully, not just to house Jews, but
political prisoners, conscientious objectors, enemy soldiers from almost every country
(07:14):
in German occupied Europe. It had some of the harshest
conditions and one of the highest death rates of any
of the Nazi camps. I don't need to tell you
how bad concentration camps were. No food, no hope, hard
labor guards who would shoot inmates for sport. The living
and the dying crammed into the same putrid spaces. Tiber
(07:39):
was just a terrified kid when he arrived at the camp.
An SS officer told him none of you Jews will
make it out of here alive.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
So many people died there every day, for so many people,
mountain of people dead. They didn't even have time to
burn them. You know, the life over. There was no future,
nothing to look forward. Just then I gonna be next.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
But Tiber was smart and resourceful and learned the ways
of the camp. One prisoner taught him to pick the
lice off every single day so he wouldn't get typhus.
When Tiber got sick from the rotted potatoes and dirty
water they were feeding him, a man in his bunk
made him eat charcoal to settle his stomach. The Polish
guys he had traveled with showed him how to steal
(08:28):
food from the officer's garbage dump. He thought of himself
like a rat, cunning, quick and silent, doing whatever he
could to survive.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
We rush an't no human beIN anymore.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
He tried not to make connections with other prisoners. Friendships
felt dangerous. Other teenagers could be unruly and get them
all into trouble. Plus the friends he made seemed inevitably
to die, even in the crowded bunk rooms. He became
more and more isolated alone. Then one evening, during roll call,
(09:05):
he saw a familiar face across the prison yard. Tiber stared.
He couldn't believe it. It was his brother, Emery. He
pushed his way through the other prisoners to get to him.
Emory and Tiber hugged. They held hands all through that
role call. It seemed like a miracle. Tiber felt like
he knew who he was again. A little bit of
(09:27):
his humanity was restored. Emory had been caught in Czechoslovakia
and had spent months doing forced hard labor. Then, without warning,
he'd been loaded on a train to Matthausen. Emory was
assigned to a different barracks than Tybor, and because he
was a carpenter, he was often sent on construction projects
(09:48):
outside Mathausen itself. The brothers rarely saw each other, but
just knowing Emory was there reminded Tibor that he was loved,
and that kept him going. The famous Viennese psychiatrist and
Auschwitz survivor Victor Frankel would later write about this exact phenomenon.
(10:09):
He said that those in the death camps who lost
their faith in the future would die a kind of
emotional death. The loss of hope would hasten the loss
of the will to live. He wrote that it was
quote possible to practice the art of living even in
a concentration camp. Frankel believed that if we react to
(10:30):
terrible circumstances with courage and kindness and unselfishness, then life
can take on a deeper meaning, even in the face
of inhumanity. Emory's arrival was at Beacon of Hope for Tibor.
He held on to it and to the lesson. It
taught him that faith in the future was powerful. Tiber
(10:56):
was in Matthausen for more than a year, amidst the death,
hatred and Squalor. Winter was viciously cold, and the prisoners
were dressed in rags that didn't keep out the chill.
They stood in the snow oh shivering while their captors
did roll call. Everyone was starving. They would sleep squeeze
next to each other like sardines. Often they would wake
(11:19):
up next to someone who had died in the night.
That's where Tiber turned fifteen. Time ground on, But then
Tiber started to hear whispers, rumors spreading. The Germans were
losing the war. The Allies were on the way, but
Tiber wasn't sure what to believe. Until one day, in
(11:39):
a palenteen forty five, the prisoners heard the drone of
Allied plains overhead work at the camp ground to a halt.
As first some then all of the Sas commands started
to flee. They had tried to destroy evidence of what
they had done, dismantling the installations for mass killing and
burning incriminating documents. By May third, the German soldiers were gone.
(12:04):
Two days later, the inmates heard the rattle of tanks.
The Americans had arrived.
Speaker 3 (12:11):
One day, five tanks showed up that bregg down the gate.
When we see the American troops in, everybody was crying
the paper and the kids their feet.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
We called them the gi Josh.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
One of the soldiers who was there that day remembered
what it was like to liberate the camp. His name
was Charles Sandler. He was in the eleventh Armored Division
of the US Army. Here he is talking about his
experiences in an interview from the nineteen eighties.
Speaker 4 (12:45):
After picture, there huge monument. This was not just a shack.
Mauthhausen Camp proper was like a huge castle on a
high ground, a very permanent, but order concentration camp. I'd
say it was a beautiful structure. As we approached, one
of the strongest impressions, which I still very clearly recall,
(13:08):
was that of the scentse What we smell was the
smell of death, of bodies rotting, hundreds of bodies stacked
like cord wood, bodies still in the crematoria.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
The prisoners at least those who were strong enough to
stand greeted the army with.
Speaker 4 (13:26):
Elation, well with unmistakable just never to be forgotten joy
and screaming and hollering, and the gates were open. After
picture a situation of fifteen thousand souls that were just
beyond description, starving, beaten, abused, and they just wanted to
(13:49):
break out a captivity. I could have been elected anything
that day I will never forget, and they're always grateful
that I had that opportunity of performing that small service.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
What Tiber noticed about the American soldiers was that they
were more than fighters. He couldn't believe how kind and
compassion that they were. They gave life, they weren't just
taking it away.
Speaker 3 (14:13):
The medic pick us up filthy stink. They have to
wash us and clean us, and to take care of
was unbelievable. This was something you'll never forget.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
Tiber and Emory were skin and bones days away from death,
but the Reuben brothers were two of the lucky ones.
At least ninety five thousand people had died in Mohausen.
Tiber and Emory returned home to their tiny town in Hungary.
Their sister Irene had survived as well, and she found
(14:46):
them there. Of the one hundred and twenty Jewish families
in their town, members of just three had returned. Among
the missing were Tiber's parents and his little sister, who
had been only ten. Eventually, Emory told Tiber the news
all three of them had been murdered at Auschwitz. When
(15:10):
they divided the prisoners who could work from the ones
who would immediately be killed. Tiber's mother had insisted on
accompanying his little sister to the gash chamber. She didn't
want her to die alone. His mother's sacrifice the American
gis both set Tiber on his life's course of holding
(15:35):
fast to what makes us human, even when inhumanity surrounds us.
Hungary was occupied by the Russians, and the Reuben's siblings
got out of the country as fast as they possibly
could before the borders closed. They made it to a
camp for displaced persons that was run by the United
Nations and the US Army. Tiber spent three years there
(15:59):
before he finally got his wish permission to move to
the United States. In neen forty eight, he boarded a
boat to New York. As the ship entered the harbor,
Tiber went to the deck to see the Manhattan skyline.
He opened his suitcase, and in a grand gesture, he
threw his clothes from the old Country overboard. He watched
(16:23):
them flutter down into the water. He was going to
start fresh. Hope had sustained him in Mahausen and in
the camps as he waited to start this new life.
Or other survivors of the war might have bitterness or regret,
Tiber instead had an unflappable optimism, faith in the future,
(16:45):
and grand plans for his new life in the United States.
Once he was there, he was going to fulfill a
vow he'd made the day the American soldiers liberated Mauthausen.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
I made the promise if Lord helped me, if I
ever go to America, I'm going to become a Geigel.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
Fast forward a couple of years. Tiber was twenty. I'm
going to take a second here to tell you what
he looked like so you can get a mental picture.
He wasn't a super tall guy. A puberty spent eating
dirty scraps and moldy bread will mess with your growth spurt.
But he looked like a movie star, like a young
Marlon Branda. He had gotten a series of jobs once
(17:44):
he settled in Manhattan. He worked at a garment factory
and in a slaughterhouse briefly. Then he got hired in
a fancy grocery store on Broadway. He couldn't really speak English,
but he charmed the ladies and buying whatever he was selling.
He was an outrageous flirt, and right around this time
he changed his name to the very American Ted.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
So I was in heaven. It's Loise Elmetti.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
Ted hadn't forgotten about his vow to join the army.
In fact, he kept trying to join, but he kept
failing the admissions test. He tried in New York twice,
and then in the fall of nineteen forty nine, Ted
moved west, ever optimistic about finding more opportunity. He settled
in Oakland, California, where he went to the Army recruitment
(18:32):
office again, and there he finally passed the entrance exam
on his third try. He might have had a little
extra help, not saying he cheated, but he could talk
his way into pretty much anything, even in his broken English.
He qualified for a sharpshooter badge, and his unit was
(18:53):
sent to Okinawa for training, and then war was declared
in Korea. The troops got ready to ship out for combat,
but the captain told Ted he couldn't go with them
because he wasn't a US citizen yet he had to
go to a safe zone instead.
Speaker 3 (19:09):
He says, Captain, I cannot go, and he save his
own because I made the promise, and when I make
a promise, I have to keep it. You say you
are your mind. I say, yes, have to go because
I owed him to. The soldiers liberated me, saved my life.
I was going to Korea with the regiment and I did.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
So. Ted had asked willingly to be sent with his
unit to a war zone, and once he arrived in Korea,
he got way more than his fair share of danger.
This was because of one guy. We're gonna call him
Sgeant A. In interviews, Ted never wanted to give this
guy's real name. It's there in his service records, but
(19:57):
it was important to Ted that he never identified him.
Speaker 3 (20:01):
I don't mention any name, because you said this is
the man is dead. He cannot hurt me anymore. So
mentioned his name.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
I'm going to respect Ted's wishes. Just trust me that
Sergeant A. Was a real person. Unfortunately, Sergeant A was
a foul mouthed World War II that from Texas and
an equal opportunity bigot. He hated the South Korean troops
who were serving alongside the Americans. He hated black people, Mexicans, Italians,
(20:35):
though fortunately for those folks none of them were assigned
to his company, and Sergeant A really hated Jews. He
couldn't believe that he had the bad luck to get
Ted assigned to his unit.
Speaker 3 (20:47):
He said, no, the US would be coming here to
fight a war. I said, well, you're looking one of
them because I'm here, So you see that. To me, there,
you are a stupid as saroma, bitch, fucking jew I
ever met. All of a sudden, I say, I have
to show to him, I'm gonna be as good as him.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
This is exactly five thousand of Ted's refusal to let
hatred chip away at his essential faith in humanity. One day,
his company was ordered to join a formation several miles
to the south. The enemy was coming their way and
they needed to move to a safer location. There was
a problem. They had more AMMO than they could transport.
(21:30):
They needed to travel to the next position get some
trucks and drive back to pick it up. Sergeant A yelled,
find me the Hungarian.
Speaker 3 (21:40):
And he said that we have a lot of ammunition
and rappens and everything. You're gonna be a guard and
if she if we're gonna come back and pick it up.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
Ted was being left behind alone on top of a ridge,
a ridge that was the only thing standing between the
approaching enemy and the US troops. He was supposed to
wait there and guard a giant pile of weapons by himself.
This was not a good situation. It was obvious to
everyone a single man wouldn't be able to keep an
(22:14):
enemy patrol from taking the ammunition or from advancing on
the company's new position. But Ted couldn't and wouldn't say no,
and Sergeant A promised they would be back to get
him before dark. Then the company packed.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
Up and left.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
The hours ticked by, the shadows grew longer. Ted kept
looking at his watch, kept waiting, hoping to hear the
rattle of trucks. Then it was dark. By midnight, it
was clear to Ted that the trucks weren't coming, and
he realized an entire enemy company could get to the
(22:51):
top of this ridge. In a matter of minutes, it
will be dozens against just him. To anyone else, the
situation would have seemed truly hopeless.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
Not Ted.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
He looked at the giant pile of ammunition and started
squirreling grenades into the foxholes along the ridge.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
Then I have my m one rifle.
Speaker 3 (23:12):
I lowered them down, a few of them and put
in some mamination.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
He gathered as much machine gun ammo as he could
handle and place that in strategic positions too. He needed
to trick the North Koreans into believing that there was
more than one soldier on guard. Then he waited for
the enemy to arrive. And arrived they did. The moon
moved from behind a cloud, and Ted saw them a
(23:39):
hundred or more North Korean soldiers silently scaling the hill.
Then it was whistles and yells and the sound of
a bugle. The onslaught had begun. Ted hurled grenades one
after another as fast as he could pull the pins.
Bone rattling blasts of motor shells came back at him.
He crawled behind a machine gun and started firing into
(24:01):
the darkness. Bullets zipped through the air in his direction.
Speaker 3 (24:05):
Then I should with my rifle. Then I should my
carbine I throw, you'll become hysterica. I did it four
and a half hours. I've been bananas.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
Four and a half hours, one man against one hundred. Finally,
as dawn came, Ted heard the sound of American planes overhead.
What was left of the enemy scattered. The battle was over.
He was alive, but still nobody was coming for him,
so he started walking. He was shell shocked, moving like
(24:41):
a zombie down the dusty road. When he finally reached
his company, he told Sergeant A what had happened. Sergeant
A didn't believe him, but Ted insisted that they go
back and look. He wanted proof for his commanding officers
and for himself. What they found was a pile of bodies.
The far side of the hill was carpeted with dead
(25:03):
and dying North Korean soldiers. Ted was horrified. He cried
in a way that he had never cried before, not
even when Emory had told him about his parents and
his little sister.
Speaker 1 (25:14):
Then I have a guilt feeling what I did here.
Speaker 3 (25:19):
You know, I kill even the enemy, but I killed
somebody's father brought there and all that, you know.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
But here's the irony right. He had become a soldier
to save lives. His first reaction wasn't relief at having
survived an unsurvivable situation. It was to see the terrible costs.
Ted knew what war was, what soldiers did. He knew
that they weren't just the life giving g I Joes
(25:53):
who had saved him from death in Mohausen. They killed people,
sometimes in a way that felt needless cruel. Up until
this moment, Ted had convinced himself that he could get
through the war with his moral code intact. Now he
had to face what it actually meant to be a soldier,
(26:14):
and he had to figure out a way to balance
the scales. How he did would change not only Ted's life,
but the lives of dozens of others. The Extraordinary Story
of Ted Rubin continues next week on Medal of Honor,
Stories of Courage. Medal of Honor Stories of Courage is
(26:51):
written by Meredith Rollins and produced by Meredith Rollins, Constanza Gallardo,
and Izzy Carter. The show is edited by Ben Daph Haffrey,
sound design and additional music by Jake Gorski, recording engineering
by Nita Lawrence, fact checking by Arthur Gombert's original music
by Eric Phillips. Special thanks to the Congressional Medal of
(27:13):
Honor Society and the Buffalo Jewish Federation. If you want
to learn more about our Medal of Honor recipients, follow
us on Instagram and Twitter. We'll be sharing photos and
videos of the heroes featured on the show. We'd also
love to hear from you dm us with a story
about a courageous veteran in your life. If you don't
know a veteran, we would love to hear a story
(27:34):
of how courage was contagious in your own life. You
can find us at Pushkinbods. I'm your host, Malcolm Glappo.
Pushkin.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
It was nineteen fifty one, and a young American serviceman
named Johnny lay dying on the dirty floor of a
mud walled hut. He was a prisoner of war, one
of thousands of US soldiers who had the bad luck
to be here, a Chinese run camp in the far
north of Korea. Death was everywhere in the camp, death
from dysentery and pneumonia and starvation, deaths from untreated battle
(00:46):
wounds left to faster, and deaths like Johnny, a soldier
exhausted after months of abuse and captivity, unable to eat
or move, slowly abandoning the will to live. The other
POWs called it ghivapitis. There was someone else in the
room with Johnny, a scrawny twenty one year old soldier
(01:08):
with a thick head of hair and an even thicker
Eastern European accent. He knelt beside Johnny and said, the
Red Cross has just dropped off their newest medicine. I'll
give it to you, but in turn, you have to
pull yourself together. You can't give up. Then he gave
Johnny a small brown pill. The other prisoners in the
(01:30):
camp had noticed this man with the medicine. Something was
different about him. When they couldn't stand up and were
lying in their own filth, he washed them clean. He
picked the light off them when they couldn't do it themselves.
He sneaked bits of food to men who were dying
of hunger, and he made them smile. He cracked jokes
and clowned around. He reminded them of the great life
(01:51):
waiting for them back home in America. They just had
to live long enough to make it there. That guy
with the accent wasn't a doctor, or a clergyman, or
even an officer. He didn't have any influence or special training.
What he did have was experience, experience in a camp
even worse than this one, a place he'd lived when
(02:13):
he was just fourteen years old, a Nazi death can
I'm Malcolm Gladwell and this is Medal of Honor Stories
of Courage. The Medal of Honor is the highest military
decoration in the United States, awarded for gallantry and bravery
in combat at the risk of life, above and beyond
(02:33):
the call of duty. Each candidate must be approved all
the way up the chain of command, from the supervisory
officer in the field to the White House This show
is about those heroes, what they did, what it meant,
and what their stories tell us about the nature of
courage and sacrifice. Today's episode is about Taibor Rubin, the
(02:56):
only Holocaust survivor to win the Medal of Honor. His
story is about more than courage and bravery. It's about
compassion and the simple truth that sometimes hope is the
most powerful defense we have. Tybar Ruben was born in
(03:30):
nineteen twenty nine in a small town in Hungary. He
had a loving family with four older siblings and a
little sister. He adored parents, who took care of him
a nice house. As a kid, he was always getting
into scrapes, playing soccer with his big brother Emory, typical
kid stuff. It wasn't fancy, but life was pretty good,
(03:52):
except that Taibor was Jewish and the Third Reich was
on the rise in nearby Germany. By the end of
the nineteen thirties, the Hungarian government had begun emulating the Nazis,
denying Jews equal rights under the law. There were jobs
they couldn't hold. I didn't marry Christians. Then in nineteen forty
(04:12):
Hungary formally joined the Axis Alliance. Even so, Hungarian Jews
were more protected than Jews in other access countries. The
government refused to deport its Jewish citizens to concentration camps,
despite pressure from their Nazi allies, so the Ruben family
felt relatively safe in their home country, even as things turned.
(04:35):
After all, Tiber's father was a decorated soldier of the
First World War. He was a patriot. More than that,
the Rubens believed in the essential goodness of people. They
taught Tibor and his siblings to act with compassion, even
when everything in his life argued against it. Tiber never
let go of that lesson. Here he is talking about
(04:58):
them in that super thick Hungarian accent.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
I told you about I might ever seen used to
all these stylars. Don't say anything bad about anybody. You
don't know anything good. You don't ever hurt anybody because
maybe we have a different religion. But according to the
good Lord that's your brothers.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
Everything changed. In March of nineteen forty four, the Nazis
seized power in Hungary. Almost immediately, plans were drawn up
for the transportation of the country's Jews, about half a
million people, to extermination camps. The Hungarian authorities didn't stand
in the way of the plan, and as the Nazis
began rounding up Jews or just killing them on the spot,
(05:45):
it became clear that the world wasn't working according to
the Reuben family values. Soon Taibar was hearing whispered conversations
between his parents. Refugees were coming through their little village
on the run from the Nazis. The world was getting darker.
Emory was twenty, and their parents worried he would be
(06:06):
pressed into military service, so this sent him across the
border to Czechoslovakia, where an aunt lived. She had arranged
for Emory to hide with a friend who was a gentile.
Tiber worshiped his brother and was paniced to watch him go,
but Emory promised Tiber he'd be back soon. Just a
few months later, a group of Polish men were passing
(06:28):
through town on the run for Switzerland. Tiber's parents met
with the men and made a wrenching decision Tiber should
leave with them. He had to try to escape what
was coming. They sent their son off with a group
of total strangers. They were that desperate to save him.
Tiber was fourteen. After days of trekking, the group reached
(06:53):
the Swiss border, only to be captured by the Nazis.
They were sent to a concentration camp named Matausen in Austria.
It looked like a stone fortress on a hill. It
had been constructed carefully, not just to house Jews, but
political prisoners, conscientious objectors, enemy soldiers from almost every country
(07:14):
in German occupied Europe. It had some of the harshest
conditions and one of the highest death rates of any
of the Nazi camps. I don't need to tell you
how bad concentration camps were. No food, no hope, hard
labor guards who would shoot inmates for sport. The living
and the dying crammed into the same putrid spaces. Tiber
(07:39):
was just a terrified kid when he arrived at the camp.
An SS officer told him none of you Jews will
make it out of here alive.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
So many people died there every day, for so many people,
mountain of people dead. They didn't even have time to
burn them. You know, the life over. There was no future,
nothing to look forward. Just then I gonna be next.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
But Tiber was smart and resourceful and learned the ways
of the camp. One prisoner taught him to pick the
lice off every single day so he wouldn't get typhus.
When Tiber got sick from the rotted potatoes and dirty
water they were feeding him, a man in his bunk
made him eat charcoal to settle his stomach. The Polish
guys he had traveled with showed him how to steal
(08:28):
food from the officer's garbage dump. He thought of himself
like a rat, cunning, quick and silent, doing whatever he
could to survive.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
We rush an't no human beIN anymore.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
He tried not to make connections with other prisoners. Friendships
felt dangerous. Other teenagers could be unruly and get them
all into trouble. Plus the friends he made seemed inevitably
to die, even in the crowded bunk rooms. He became
more and more isolated alone. Then one evening, during roll call,
(09:05):
he saw a familiar face across the prison yard. Tiber stared.
He couldn't believe it. It was his brother, Emery. He
pushed his way through the other prisoners to get to him.
Emory and Tiber hugged. They held hands all through that
role call. It seemed like a miracle. Tiber felt like
he knew who he was again. A little bit of
(09:27):
his humanity was restored. Emory had been caught in Czechoslovakia
and had spent months doing forced hard labor. Then, without warning,
he'd been loaded on a train to Matthausen. Emory was
assigned to a different barracks than Tybor, and because he
was a carpenter, he was often sent on construction projects
(09:48):
outside Mathausen itself. The brothers rarely saw each other, but
just knowing Emory was there reminded Tibor that he was loved,
and that kept him going. The famous Viennese psychiatrist and
Auschwitz survivor Victor Frankel would later write about this exact phenomenon.
(10:09):
He said that those in the death camps who lost
their faith in the future would die a kind of
emotional death. The loss of hope would hasten the loss
of the will to live. He wrote that it was
quote possible to practice the art of living even in
a concentration camp. Frankel believed that if we react to
(10:30):
terrible circumstances with courage and kindness and unselfishness, then life
can take on a deeper meaning, even in the face
of inhumanity. Emory's arrival was at Beacon of Hope for Tibor.
He held on to it and to the lesson. It
taught him that faith in the future was powerful. Tiber
(10:56):
was in Matthausen for more than a year, amidst the death,
hatred and Squalor. Winter was viciously cold, and the prisoners
were dressed in rags that didn't keep out the chill.
They stood in the snow oh shivering while their captors
did roll call. Everyone was starving. They would sleep squeeze
next to each other like sardines. Often they would wake
(11:19):
up next to someone who had died in the night.
That's where Tiber turned fifteen. Time ground on, But then
Tiber started to hear whispers, rumors spreading. The Germans were
losing the war. The Allies were on the way, but
Tiber wasn't sure what to believe. Until one day, in
(11:39):
a palenteen forty five, the prisoners heard the drone of
Allied plains overhead work at the camp ground to a halt.
As first some then all of the Sas commands started
to flee. They had tried to destroy evidence of what
they had done, dismantling the installations for mass killing and
burning incriminating documents. By May third, the German soldiers were gone.
(12:04):
Two days later, the inmates heard the rattle of tanks.
The Americans had arrived.
Speaker 3 (12:11):
One day, five tanks showed up that bregg down the gate.
When we see the American troops in, everybody was crying
the paper and the kids their feet.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
We called them the gi Josh.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
One of the soldiers who was there that day remembered
what it was like to liberate the camp. His name
was Charles Sandler. He was in the eleventh Armored Division
of the US Army. Here he is talking about his
experiences in an interview from the nineteen eighties.
Speaker 4 (12:45):
After picture, there huge monument. This was not just a shack.
Mauthhausen Camp proper was like a huge castle on a
high ground, a very permanent, but order concentration camp. I'd
say it was a beautiful structure. As we approached, one
of the strongest impressions, which I still very clearly recall,
(13:08):
was that of the scentse What we smell was the
smell of death, of bodies rotting, hundreds of bodies stacked
like cord wood, bodies still in the crematoria.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
The prisoners at least those who were strong enough to
stand greeted the army with.
Speaker 4 (13:26):
Elation, well with unmistakable just never to be forgotten joy
and screaming and hollering, and the gates were open. After
picture a situation of fifteen thousand souls that were just
beyond description, starving, beaten, abused, and they just wanted to
(13:49):
break out a captivity. I could have been elected anything
that day I will never forget, and they're always grateful
that I had that opportunity of performing that small service.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
What Tiber noticed about the American soldiers was that they
were more than fighters. He couldn't believe how kind and
compassion that they were. They gave life, they weren't just
taking it away.
Speaker 3 (14:13):
The medic pick us up filthy stink. They have to
wash us and clean us, and to take care of
was unbelievable. This was something you'll never forget.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
Tiber and Emory were skin and bones days away from death,
but the Reuben brothers were two of the lucky ones.
At least ninety five thousand people had died in Mohausen.
Tiber and Emory returned home to their tiny town in Hungary.
Their sister Irene had survived as well, and she found
(14:46):
them there. Of the one hundred and twenty Jewish families
in their town, members of just three had returned. Among
the missing were Tiber's parents and his little sister, who
had been only ten. Eventually, Emory told Tiber the news
all three of them had been murdered at Auschwitz. When
(15:10):
they divided the prisoners who could work from the ones
who would immediately be killed. Tiber's mother had insisted on
accompanying his little sister to the gash chamber. She didn't
want her to die alone. His mother's sacrifice the American
gis both set Tiber on his life's course of holding
(15:35):
fast to what makes us human, even when inhumanity surrounds us.
Hungary was occupied by the Russians, and the Reuben's siblings
got out of the country as fast as they possibly
could before the borders closed. They made it to a
camp for displaced persons that was run by the United
Nations and the US Army. Tiber spent three years there
(15:59):
before he finally got his wish permission to move to
the United States. In neen forty eight, he boarded a
boat to New York. As the ship entered the harbor,
Tiber went to the deck to see the Manhattan skyline.
He opened his suitcase, and in a grand gesture, he
threw his clothes from the old Country overboard. He watched
(16:23):
them flutter down into the water. He was going to
start fresh. Hope had sustained him in Mahausen and in
the camps as he waited to start this new life.
Or other survivors of the war might have bitterness or regret,
Tiber instead had an unflappable optimism, faith in the future,
(16:45):
and grand plans for his new life in the United States.
Once he was there, he was going to fulfill a
vow he'd made the day the American soldiers liberated Mauthausen.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
I made the promise if Lord helped me, if I
ever go to America, I'm going to become a Geigel.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
Fast forward a couple of years. Tiber was twenty. I'm
going to take a second here to tell you what
he looked like so you can get a mental picture.
He wasn't a super tall guy. A puberty spent eating
dirty scraps and moldy bread will mess with your growth spurt.
But he looked like a movie star, like a young
Marlon Branda. He had gotten a series of jobs once
(17:44):
he settled in Manhattan. He worked at a garment factory
and in a slaughterhouse briefly. Then he got hired in
a fancy grocery store on Broadway. He couldn't really speak English,
but he charmed the ladies and buying whatever he was selling.
He was an outrageous flirt, and right around this time
he changed his name to the very American Ted.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
So I was in heaven. It's Loise Elmetti.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
Ted hadn't forgotten about his vow to join the army.
In fact, he kept trying to join, but he kept
failing the admissions test. He tried in New York twice,
and then in the fall of nineteen forty nine, Ted
moved west, ever optimistic about finding more opportunity. He settled
in Oakland, California, where he went to the Army recruitment
(18:32):
office again, and there he finally passed the entrance exam
on his third try. He might have had a little
extra help, not saying he cheated, but he could talk
his way into pretty much anything, even in his broken English.
He qualified for a sharpshooter badge, and his unit was
(18:53):
sent to Okinawa for training, and then war was declared
in Korea. The troops got ready to ship out for combat,
but the captain told Ted he couldn't go with them
because he wasn't a US citizen yet he had to
go to a safe zone instead.
Speaker 3 (19:09):
He says, Captain, I cannot go, and he save his
own because I made the promise, and when I make
a promise, I have to keep it. You say you
are your mind. I say, yes, have to go because
I owed him to. The soldiers liberated me, saved my life.
I was going to Korea with the regiment and I did.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
So. Ted had asked willingly to be sent with his
unit to a war zone, and once he arrived in Korea,
he got way more than his fair share of danger.
This was because of one guy. We're gonna call him
Sgeant A. In interviews, Ted never wanted to give this
guy's real name. It's there in his service records, but
(19:57):
it was important to Ted that he never identified him.
Speaker 3 (20:01):
I don't mention any name, because you said this is
the man is dead. He cannot hurt me anymore. So
mentioned his name.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
I'm going to respect Ted's wishes. Just trust me that
Sergeant A. Was a real person. Unfortunately, Sergeant A was
a foul mouthed World War II that from Texas and
an equal opportunity bigot. He hated the South Korean troops
who were serving alongside the Americans. He hated black people, Mexicans, Italians,
(20:35):
though fortunately for those folks none of them were assigned
to his company, and Sergeant A really hated Jews. He
couldn't believe that he had the bad luck to get
Ted assigned to his unit.
Speaker 3 (20:47):
He said, no, the US would be coming here to
fight a war. I said, well, you're looking one of
them because I'm here, So you see that. To me, there,
you are a stupid as saroma, bitch, fucking jew I
ever met. All of a sudden, I say, I have
to show to him, I'm gonna be as good as him.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
This is exactly five thousand of Ted's refusal to let
hatred chip away at his essential faith in humanity. One day,
his company was ordered to join a formation several miles
to the south. The enemy was coming their way and
they needed to move to a safer location. There was
a problem. They had more AMMO than they could transport.
(21:30):
They needed to travel to the next position get some
trucks and drive back to pick it up. Sergeant A yelled,
find me the Hungarian.
Speaker 3 (21:40):
And he said that we have a lot of ammunition
and rappens and everything. You're gonna be a guard and
if she if we're gonna come back and pick it up.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
Ted was being left behind alone on top of a ridge,
a ridge that was the only thing standing between the
approaching enemy and the US troops. He was supposed to
wait there and guard a giant pile of weapons by himself.
This was not a good situation. It was obvious to
everyone a single man wouldn't be able to keep an
(22:14):
enemy patrol from taking the ammunition or from advancing on
the company's new position. But Ted couldn't and wouldn't say no,
and Sergeant A promised they would be back to get
him before dark. Then the company packed.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
Up and left.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
The hours ticked by, the shadows grew longer. Ted kept
looking at his watch, kept waiting, hoping to hear the
rattle of trucks. Then it was dark. By midnight, it
was clear to Ted that the trucks weren't coming, and
he realized an entire enemy company could get to the
(22:51):
top of this ridge. In a matter of minutes, it
will be dozens against just him. To anyone else, the
situation would have seemed truly hopeless.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
Not Ted.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
He looked at the giant pile of ammunition and started
squirreling grenades into the foxholes along the ridge.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
Then I have my m one rifle.
Speaker 3 (23:12):
I lowered them down, a few of them and put
in some mamination.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
He gathered as much machine gun ammo as he could
handle and place that in strategic positions too. He needed
to trick the North Koreans into believing that there was
more than one soldier on guard. Then he waited for
the enemy to arrive. And arrived they did. The moon
moved from behind a cloud, and Ted saw them a
(23:39):
hundred or more North Korean soldiers silently scaling the hill.
Then it was whistles and yells and the sound of
a bugle. The onslaught had begun. Ted hurled grenades one
after another as fast as he could pull the pins.
Bone rattling blasts of motor shells came back at him.
He crawled behind a machine gun and started firing into
(24:01):
the darkness. Bullets zipped through the air in his direction.
Speaker 3 (24:05):
Then I should with my rifle. Then I should my
carbine I throw, you'll become hysterica. I did it four
and a half hours. I've been bananas.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
Four and a half hours, one man against one hundred. Finally,
as dawn came, Ted heard the sound of American planes overhead.
What was left of the enemy scattered. The battle was over.
He was alive, but still nobody was coming for him,
so he started walking. He was shell shocked, moving like
(24:41):
a zombie down the dusty road. When he finally reached
his company, he told Sergeant A what had happened. Sergeant
A didn't believe him, but Ted insisted that they go
back and look. He wanted proof for his commanding officers
and for himself. What they found was a pile of bodies.
The far side of the hill was carpeted with dead
(25:03):
and dying North Korean soldiers. Ted was horrified. He cried
in a way that he had never cried before, not
even when Emory had told him about his parents and
his little sister.
Speaker 1 (25:14):
Then I have a guilt feeling what I did here.
Speaker 3 (25:19):
You know, I kill even the enemy, but I killed
somebody's father brought there and all that, you know.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
But here's the irony right. He had become a soldier
to save lives. His first reaction wasn't relief at having
survived an unsurvivable situation. It was to see the terrible costs.
Ted knew what war was, what soldiers did. He knew
that they weren't just the life giving g I Joes
(25:53):
who had saved him from death in Mohausen. They killed people,
sometimes in a way that felt needless cruel. Up until
this moment, Ted had convinced himself that he could get
through the war with his moral code intact. Now he
had to face what it actually meant to be a soldier,
(26:14):
and he had to figure out a way to balance
the scales. How he did would change not only Ted's life,
but the lives of dozens of others. The Extraordinary Story
of Ted Rubin continues next week on Medal of Honor,
Stories of Courage. Medal of Honor Stories of Courage is
(26:51):
written by Meredith Rollins and produced by Meredith Rollins, Constanza Gallardo,
and Izzy Carter. The show is edited by Ben Daph Haffrey,
sound design and additional music by Jake Gorski, recording engineering
by Nita Lawrence, fact checking by Arthur Gombert's original music
by Eric Phillips. Special thanks to the Congressional Medal of
(27:13):
Honor Society and the Buffalo Jewish Federation. If you want
to learn more about our Medal of Honor recipients, follow
us on Instagram and Twitter. We'll be sharing photos and
videos of the heroes featured on the show. We'd also
love to hear from you dm us with a story
about a courageous veteran in your life. If you don't
know a veteran, we would love to hear a story
(27:34):
of how courage was contagious in your own life. You
can find us at Pushkinbods. I'm your host, Malcolm Glappo.
Host
Malcolm Gladwell
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!