A 92-year-old Bronx woman was given the Jewish Rescuers Citation by B’Nai B’Rith on Thursday at Riverdale YM-YWHA for her brave past rescuing Jews from Nazi-occupied Hungary during World War II.
Berta Davidovitz Rubinsztejn was honored for her work helping Hungarian Jews escape German soldiers by disguising herself as a Gentile and working with the Zionist underground youth movement called Dror Habonim.
At Thursday’s ceremony, NY Daily News (http://nydn.us/1sbFNlr ) reports that Rubinsztejn was reunited with Meir Brand, now 79, one of the orphans she saved from the streets of Budapest.
Brand says he is the only survivor of his family. His parents paid a smuggler to take him when he was only 7 years old out of Poland in 1943 before the Nazis sent them to Auschwitz.
Brand lived on the streets of Budapest alone for almost a year before Rubinsztejn found him and took him in.
One month later, Rubinsztejn and Brand were on a train headed for Spain in a deal made with the Nazis by journalist Rudolf Kasztner to provide safety to Jews leaving Hungary in exchange for trucks.
After spending months at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, the pair were sent to Switzerland, then Israel.
Brand made his home in Israel, while Rubinsztejn has lived in the Bronx for 55 years.
this is an amazing and breathtaking story! i hope we uncover more hidden holocaust rescuers…it willl inspire the whole jewish nation