Tibor Rubin’s Medicine (Part 2)

Pushkin.

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I'm Malcolm Glabwell and this is Medal of Honor Stories of Courage, our podcast about the heroes who have won America's highest military decoration.

In the last episode, we met Tiber Rubin, or Ted as he renamed himself.

Born in Hungary, he survived a Nazi concentration camp when he was just a teen.

He was liberated by American GIs and made a vow that someday, God willing, he would become one of them.

And he did.

He joined the U.S.

Army and was sent to Korea.

When we last saw him there, he had held off an entire enemy force by himself at night.

He survived, but he was horrified by what he had done.

He hadn't gone to the Army to kill people.

He wanted to save them.

But on the day after Ted's one-man stand, his commanding officer surveyed the scene.

He knew that Ted's battle was more than just a bloodbath.

He hadn't only safeguarded a valuable cache of weapons, he had kept the enemy from reaching the main and only road, the one that led directly to the U.S.

troops.

Yes, he had taken lives, but he had saved countless more.

A captain told me to say, hey, Teddy, if you don't kill them, you're gonna get killed.

Not only you get killed, your friends and everybody.

You see, that's what

it's hell.

The CO thought he deserved the Medal of Honor, but one thing stood in the way.

Ted's supervisory officer, Sergeant A.

The bigoted man who had put him in that hopeless position on the ridge in the first place.

So even though the CO ordered Sergeant A.

to write up the paperwork to recommend Ted for the Medal of Honor, Sergeant A.

never did.

He wasn't going to see a Jewish soldier get that kind of recognition.

Not on my watch, he said.

And Ted kept getting sent into the worst imaginable situations.

Sergeant A made sure of that.

Every time he needed a volunteer, a so-called volunteer, he always called for me and say, get me that fucking Saromovich Hungarian Joe.

That was me.

So pretty soon I forget my real name.

I figured when they call me a Sarumovich Huckinjo, that's me.

I was only 20 years old, you know.

It became clear to everyone that Sergeant A wouldn't be happy until he had gotten Ted killed.

He actually made a hero out of me.

Because every dangerous mission Ted got sent on just showcased his bravery, his resourcefulness, and his compassion.

Even more than that, Ted never lost his optimism, his hope, his belief in the goodness of others.

He risked his life to rescue a fellow soldier, Leonard Hamm, from the battlefield against Sergeant A's orders, but he saved him.

Then Sergeant A sent Ted into the forest alone on a deadly scouting mission.

He zigzagged from tree to tree, trying to stay hidden.

But suddenly, right in front of him, were three armed North Korean soldiers.

Once again, Ted was outnumbered.

But then he noticed something.

They were holding a white flag.

One of them, a lieutenant, asked Ted who he was.

Ted's mind raced.

If they knew he was a private, a soldier of minimal importance, they might kill him.

So he lied.

He said he was a commanding officer, a major, and he didn't stop there.

He told them that North Korea had lost the war.

Kim Il-sung was in Tokyo right that very moment in peace talks with General MacArthur.

And that's how he got two full companies of enemy soldiers, several hundred men, to surrender to him.

It was a miracle, you know what I mean.

I was talking broken English.

They were talking broken English.

I was a sharp-looking soldier.

I told them I'm Major Rubin.

And they give up.

They capture over 400 prisoners without firing anything.

The North Korean soldiers lay down their arms, and Ted told them to wait where they were until he could bring reinforcements.

He ran back to camp with the news.

Once again, nobody believed him.

until they went out and saw the hundreds of unarmed, surrendered North Korean soldiers.

And once again, Sergeant A.

was told to fill out the paperwork for a Medal of Honor, and, because a bigot is nothing if not predictable, he did no such thing.

Then came the worst battle Ted's unit saw.

Unbeknownst to the American troops on the ground, the Chinese had entered the war, sending thousands of soldiers to join the North Koreans.

Three U.S.

Army battalions, including Ted's, were sent to the small city of Unsan,

where the attacks were constant and merciless.

Ted was there, behind a line defended by a single machine gun way out in the open.

One machine gunner after another was killed while operating it.

Three men died, and then nobody wanted to go out and hold the line anymore.

Nobody wanted to get on it because it was dangerous.

But it was necessary to save their lives.

So Ted stepped forward.

And not because I'm a hero or anything, but I figured that's the only thing we have left.

So that's slow him down.

Ted held the position until the ammunition was gone.

He took shrapnel to his hand, his chest, his leg, but he wouldn't leave his position.

Meanwhile, Sergeant A had retreated behind the lines, telling no one and taking no one with him.

He'd run away to safety.

The good news for Ted was that his tormentor was finally gone.

More reason for optimism, right?

But in fact, Ted's run of luck was about to end.

The Americans were massively outnumbered.

First came defeat, then came capture.

Ted and a straggling group of survivors were rounded up by the Chinese command and marched north.

Initially, they were a handful of soldiers in the line with Ted.

Soon, they were hundreds.

It was November 1950, the start of a particularly brutal winter.

Ted took breaks from marching to remove his boots and massage his toes.

He had seen toes turn black and fall off from frostbite at Mothausen.

The lessons from the camp were coming back to him.

The men walked for days through knee-deep snow.

Finally, they saw it.

A dozen single-story shacks with a creek running past them, surrounded by loops of barbed wire.

They had arrived at the place they would soon call Death Valley.

Why they call it the Dead Valley?

Because there are guys started dying there.

Ted couldn't have known, but he was heading into a system of notoriously brutal POW camps.

Of the American servicemen who went into these camps, 38%

would die.

If the American soldiers thought they had seen death and cruelty in combat, they hadn't seen anything like what was coming.

But Ted had.

More on that after this quick break.

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With online programs that fit around deployments, training, and unpredictable schedules, AMU makes it possible to earn your degree no matter where duty takes you.

Their preferred military rate keeps tuition at just $250 per credit hour for undergraduate and master's tuition.

And with 24-7 mental health support plus career coaching and other services, AMU is committed to your success during and after your service.

Learn more at amu.apus.edu slash military.

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When you become captured, you become a nothing.

They can take you out any second, they shoot you, and that's it.

You're just a dead man.

They can beat you up.

They can starve you.

They can punish you.

You're no more a human being.

Life in POW Camp 5 was like this.

You got two tiny cups of grain twice a day, and when it was cooked in water, please note, clean water not available, it turned into a porridge that kept a soldier hovering just above the starvation point.

There was no hospital for all the wounded and sick.

Well, there was something they called the hospital, but if you went in, you didn't come out.

Soldiers knew to avoid it at all costs.

The 3,000 prisoners had dysentery, pneumonia, untreated wounds, and they had the dreaded give up-itis.

What they called it when an inmate would just stop eating, stop moving, and seemingly lose the will to live.

Winter was viciously cold, and the prisoners were dressed in rags that didn't keep out the chill.

They stood in the snow, shivering.

while their captors did roll call.

Everyone was starving.

They would sleep squeezed next to each other like sardines.

Often, they'd wake up next to someone who had died in the night.

For the American soldiers, this was an unimaginable nightmare.

For Ted, it was all too familiar.

Remember, he had been in a Nazi concentration camp just five years earlier, but there were key differences between Camp 5 and Mauthausen.

For one thing, they looked very different.

At Mauthausen, the prison fortress had been designed to last.

Camp 5 was just a series of hastily built mud huts.

And Ted would tell you, there was another key difference, too.

For the Nazis, mass murder was the whole point.

But while the Chinese didn't necessarily care if a soldier died, death wasn't the ultimate goal.

Indoctrination was.

This was the Cold War.

Communism versus democracy.

The Chinese desperately wanted these Americans to buy into their way of life, even if it happened by force.

Perhaps you've heard of the movie, The Manchurian Candidate.

It's a classic 1960s film starring Frank Sinatra.

The whole plot revolves around an American GI who is brainwashed in a North Korean POW camp.

That GI wins the Medal of Honor, and then, because he's been brainwashed, he tries to kill the Conservative Party's presidential nominee.

The film is a psychological thriller with a hefty dose of political satire and surrealism and camp.

His brain has not only been washed, as they say, it has been dry clean.

The GI's mother is in on the assassination plot.

She's played by Angela Lansbury, who was at the time 37.

The actor playing her son was 35.

It's all completely nuts.

Anyway, this is all to say, brainwashing, or the attempt at brainwashing, was an actual thing in the camps.

In Camp 5, the soldiers' days were filled with information sessions, lectures about the ills of American society.

They could be tortured if they resisted their re-education or engaged in debate with their captors.

Agreeing with the doctrine, on the other hand, might get them cigarettes or food.

Layered on top of the painful hunger, the cold, and the deprivation, the idea was to break the soldiers down and rebuild them as compliant comrades.

But Ted had a way to avoid all of this misery.

His Chinese captors realized, hey, here's a guy who can't really speak English.

Sorry, Ted.

He's not even an American citizen.

He's from Hungary, which is under the influence of the USSR, which is our communist ally.

So they came to Ted and said, Comrade, you don't have to stay here.

We'll send you home to Hungary.

The other soldiers were blown away by Ted's incredible good luck, and they were equally blown away when Ted said, no.

He would stay with his men.

Thank you very much.

The other guys couldn't believe it.

Why would anyone stay in this god-forsaken place?

But they didn't realize something essential about Ted.

He hadn't become a soldier to gun down hundreds of men on a ridge to take life.

He'd become a soldier to give life.

And he realized that he could do that in the camp.

Not just keep people alive, but keep them human.

I would help anybody if I am able.

And my mother was a Sambi.

Also, my father was a Sambi.

And that's one thing she teaches.

Try to help your fellow men, regardless the black, yellow,

whatever nationality.

Ted had already endured the Holocaust.

This would be a central fact of his life, as it was for all who survived it.

But almost none of those fellow survivors had to live it again.

Ted did.

And then he chose to stay there and put what he had learned to work.

He started mapping the camp.

When the guards took the prisoners up the mountain to chop wood, Ted stared back at the prison buildings, scanning them.

This is where the storehouses are.

This is where the guards sleep.

When they needed prisoners to bury dead bodies, and they were always dead bodies, Ted's hand shot up.

I'll go.

He took every opportunity to get the lay of the land.

The moment he figured out where they were keeping the food, he started stealing it.

Every night, he snuck into the storehouses and stuffed the legs of his uniform with bits of bread and meat or potatoes, whatever he could find.

Then he brought his loot back and shared it with everyone he could.

The men were grateful, but they were terrified on his behalf.

They all understood that if Ted were caught, he would be killed.

The men in his camp called him brave.

Ted thinks it was something else.

You have to be nuts, and I always was nuts.

You know, call it in Jewish meshugane.

I love that word, meshugana.

Leo Cormier was one of the men in Ted's hut.

Years later, he remembered what Ted did.

They used to have grinding mills for flour.

Ingorov used to stuff his pants full of flour to take for all the guys in camp to eat.

He raised his life there to quote him stealing that flour.

He had to cut his neck off.

And he'd take grass and blow regular grass and make soup out of it.

And that didn't help a lot of guys or make sure they got their food or anything.

Just like he learned back in Muthausen, Ted convinced his bunk mates to strip down and pick every single louse and bed bug off their bodies.

He knew what would happen if they let the vermin take over.

I seen him one night spend the whole night picking lice off one of the guys that didn't have the strength to lift his head up.

And Ted stayed there all night picking lice off the guy on the charcoal fire.

So, you know, what now would do that?

A man like Ted.

I was not just a soldier, not just a funny-talking Jew.

I was there when they needed me.

I feed them.

I was their handyman, doctor, nurse, friend.

Ted desperately tried to keep POWs out of the so-called hospital where the weakest were sent to die.

So he'd find sick men and watch them carefully.

He brought them hot water in his helmet and washed their wounds.

When they were too weak to get up and were lying in their own filth, he'd clean them.

He did that for Leo.

It got so bad I had dysentery and I couldn't go to the bathroom.

Ted would take me up.

I don't want the hell he got the strength to carry me, but I only weighed about 80 pounds, maybe 90 pounds on it.

So why did Ted do it?

Maybe because he remembered the feeling of holding his brother's hand in the concentration camp, and how that fleeting moment of connection restored his sense of humanity.

Maybe because after all of those enemy soldiers he killed on the ridge, he wanted to even the tally, make up for the lives he'd taken.

But I think it's even bigger than that.

It's because Ted Rubin saw the possibility of greatness in every single man he saved.

They always say when you save a life, you save maybe a nation.

When you save a life, you save a nation.

Ted didn't see men who were skin and bones, crusted in filth, beaten down.

He saw future fathers, community leaders, people who had the potential to do good in the world.

He saw the American life he had always dreamed about, even when the worst America had to offer spat in his face.

So he put his own life on the line to safeguard that dream for everyone else.

He was a dying soldier on the floor of the mud hut.

The young serviceman with gevapitis, too sick to move or eat or keep going.

He don't want to eat.

He was just giving up.

I said, Johnny, I said, Red Cross was just there.

He brings us new medication.

I will give you some of them.

But only one thing I ask you, and that's all.

You have to promise, Johnny, you're going to help yourself because your parents waiting for you, your brother and sister waiting for you.

What's gonna be, Johnny?

You wanna die or you wanna help yourself?

Johnny promised to help himself, and Ted kept giving him that medicine.

He visited Johnny three times a day for a week, carrying those little brown pills.

After five days, Johnny was sitting up and talking again.

Two weeks later, he was on his feet, thanks to the amazing medicine that Ted had given him.

But here's the thing.

There was no medicine in the camp.

The Red Cross hadn't been there.

Those little brown balls were, and I think this is beautiful, so I'm sorry for what I'm about to say, goat poop.

Ted fed him goat shit.

He knew that what Johnny really needed was something to believe in.

And what the hell, it worked.

So when he was completely recovered, he went, you son of my bitch, you make me eat all the shit, but thank God I'm alive.

He kissed me and everything.

He was so happy.

Ted's special medicine didn't save Johnny's life.

Hope did.

Finally, after 30 months in Camp 5, the men started to go home.

Red officers come forward to deliver another consignment of UN prisoners to the custody of allied officials, a total of 684.

From then on, Red ambulances disgorge the stark proof of man's inhumanity to man.

The conflict was slowly reaching its end.

Even as these fortunate ones turn their steps homeward, thousands of others remain to an unknown fate.

But for those who can smile again, all America is thankful.

They sent the sick home first, and by then Ted was one of them.

That old shrapnel wound in his knee had become infected.

He arrived in the U.S.

on a stretcher.

Thousands of men had died in Camp Five, but Ted had managed to save at least 30 of them.

He had kept them alive, and he had kept hope alive, too.

This episode is brought to you by Navy Federal Credit Union.

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With this tool, you can find the vehicle that's right for you as you search through inventory and compare models.

And you could get an amazing rate when you finance with Navy Federal.

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Make your plan with Navy Federal and TrueCar TrueCar today.

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Terms and conditions apply and are available at navyfederal.org slash TrueCar.

Credit and collateral subject to approval.

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In today's super competitive business environment, the edge goes to those who push harder, move faster, and level up every tool in their arsenal.

T-Mobile knows all about that.

They're now the best network, according to the experts at OOCLA Speed Test, and they're using that network to launch Supermobile, the first and only business plan to combine intelligent performance, built-in security, and seamless satellite coverage.

With SuperMobile, your performance, security, and coverage are supercharged.

With a network that adapts in real time, your business stays operating at peak capacity even in times of high demand.

With built-in security on the first nationwide 5G advanced network, you keep private data private for you, your team, your clients.

And with seamless coverage from the world's largest satellite-to-mobile constellation, your whole team can text and stay updated even when they're off the grid.

That's your business, supercharged.

Learn more at supermobile.com.

Seamless coverage with compatible devices in most outdoor areas in the U.S.

where you can see the sky.

Best network based on analysis by UCLA of Speed Test Intelligence Data 1H 2025.

American Military University, where service members like you can access high-quality, affordable education built for your lifestyle.

With online programs that fit around deployments, training, and unpredictable schedules, AMU makes it possible to earn your degree no matter where duty takes you.

Their preferred military rate keeps tuition at just $250 per credit hour for undergraduate and master's tuition.

And with 24-7 mental health support plus career coaching and other services, AMU is committed to your success during and after your service.

Learn more at amu.apus.edu slash military.

That's amu.apus.edu slash slash military.

When Ted got back to the States, he became an American citizen.

He reconnected with his siblings who had finally gotten permission to immigrate to the U.S.

and who had been waiting for him.

And in the final strange twist to his story, he became famous.

His picture made the papers.

Remember what I said about how handsome he was?

Hollywood saw that too.

He was invited to premieres and publicity events, starlets on his arm.

There was talk of turning his life story into a movie.

But Ted wasn't interested.

He didn't want to talk about his experiences in Mothausen or in Korea.

Like so many survivors of his generation, he preferred to put it behind him, focus on his American life.

He got married.

He had kids.

He settled down in California.

He worked at his brother Emery's liquor store.

And even though he had been told on two separate occasions on the battlefield that he had been recommended for the Medal of Honor, he had never thought about the fact that no medal had ever materialized.

In fact, he had been recommended four times, four, practically unheard of.

Good old Sergeant A.

had refused to file the paperwork for two of those recommendations.

And two others, from the battle at Lincennes and from his heroism at Camp Five, had gotten lost in a shuffle.

But the men who remembered, including Leo Cormier, spent years advocating on his behalf.

They knew what he deserved.

Then, in the 1990s, the military started looking back through the records.

They wanted to see if any Jewish servicemen had been overlooked because of anti-Semitism.

Right at the top of the list was Ted.

In September of 2005, he finally got his medal, awarded by President George W.

Bush.

And by awarding the Medal of Honor to Corporal Rubin today, the United States acknowledges a debt that time has not diminished.

By repeatedly risking his own life to save others, Corporal Rubin exemplified the highest ideals of military service and fulfilled a pledge to give something back to the country that had given him his freedom.

And he knew that the America he fought for did not always live up to his highest ideals.

Yet he had enough trust in America's promise to see his commitment through.

Ted still didn't think he deserved a medal.

Ted just did the thing he thought human beings were supposed to do.

I say, listen, yesterday I was just a schmuck.

Today they call me sir.

And to get a medal of honor, you know,

that's a big thing.

I never knew that I'm gonna be a superjoke.

I mean, I'm joking.

No, I'm not super.

I'm just a regular guy.

Between his actions in combat and at the camp, the Army puts the number of people that Ted Rubin saved at close to 100.

I think he was able to do that because he valued the humanity in every person he met, even those who treated him with bigotry or scorn.

Even those who saw him as a funny foreigner with a crazy accent and a religion they didn't understand.

He was taught the value of life when he was only 14 in a place that didn't value life at all.

He learned the power of hope and compassion, and he kept those lessons with him.

They gave him strength and with that strength, he gave strength to others.

Ted Rubin died in 2015 at the age of 86, proud of his service and proud, most of all, to be a citizen of the United States of America.

It is the best country in the world, world, and I'm part of it now.

Medal of Honor, Stories of Courage, is written by Meredith Rollins and produced by Meredith Rollins, Constanza Galardo, and Izzy Carter.

The show is edited by Ben Nadaf Haffrey, sound design and additional music by Jake Gorski.

recording engineering by Nina Lawrence, fact-checking by Arthur Gompertz, original music by Eric Phillips.

Special thanks to the Congressional Medal of Honor Society and the book Single-Handed by Daniel Cohen.

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 this 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 of how courage was contagious in your own life.

You can find us at Pushkin Bods.

I'm your host, Malcolm Gaba.

This episode is brought to you by Navy Federal Credit Union.

Navy Federal can help you find and finance the right vehicle with ease.

With Navy Federal's Car Buying Service powered by TrueCar, you can find the vehicle that's right for you as you search through inventory and compare models.

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Ah, smart water.

Pure, crisp taste, perfectly refreshing.

Wow, that's really good water with electrolytes for taste.

It's the kind of water that says, I have my life together.

I'm still pretending the laundry on the chair is part of the decor.

Yet, here you are, making excellent hydration choices.

I do feel more sophisticated.

That's called having a taste for taste.

Huh, a taste for taste.

I like that.

Smart water.

For those with a taste for taste, grab yours today.

This is an iHeart Podcast.