By Debbie Schlussel

The story of Dr. Harry Jubas, an American patriot and one of the youngest Holocaust survivors to live through the Nazi death camps, is truly amazing. And a lesson and example for us all.

Late last week, I did one of my regular early morning radio appearances I do most days around the country. This one was on the morning show on KIDO-AM in Boise, Idaho. On the show, I discussed the Israeli elections, the Netanyahu speech to Congress, and the Iranian threat. Then, a caller phoned in to tell me that Israel is America’s worst enemy (Israel is actually America’s best friend). I asked the caller if he believed the Holocaust happened, and he denied it, with the typical BS of Holocaust-deniers. I told the audience that my maternal grandparents lived to tell what happened in the Nazi death camps, after surviving them, and that most of both sides of my family were wiped out. After my appearance was over, I checked my e-mail to learn that my longtime family friend, Dr. Harry Jubas, died at age 82, and that his funeral was being held that afternoon.

Harry Jubas was living, breathing evidence that the Holocaust happened and what it did to destroy families and lives. But, more important, he was living, breathing evidence that the Nazis lost and that good triumphed over evil. And Harry Jubas’ life was also the story of the great opportunities America gives to those who arrive, deserve to be here, and work hard. I wish you could have heard his three children’s touching eulogies at the funeral. They brought more than one tear to my eye, and not just because I knew this great man and was touched by him in life. I feel compelled to share his amazing story with you. I put it off for a week because it is daunting and difficult to put into words a description of such a special person.

Although he never shared the stories of the Holocaust with his children (in order to shield them and give them the childhood he was denied), his son and my friend, Mark Jubas, overheard the stories when he would relay them to others. I am only giving you the Cliff’s Notes version, as his story is even more amazing than what I can share in a brief column.

Harry Jubas was born to a Jewish family in Czestochowa, Poland, and at age seven, his family was rounded up by the Nazis. The Jews were ordered to stand in line as the Nazis went through the “selection process,” during which a seven-year-old was sure to be selected to go in the line to his death. Each time Dr. Jubas came closer to the front of the line, he sneaked to the back. A German soldier toward the back of the line was recruiting people to work in a munitions factory, and Dr. Jubas–again, then only seven years old–begged to be selected for that. He lied about his age and was chosen. Eventually, after a couple of years in the munitions factory, Dr. Jubas was sent to the Nazi camps and was at three of those camps with my late grandfather, Isaac Engel–Gross Rosen, Dora, and at the end, Bergen Belsen. My grandfather, about 12 or 13 years his senior, met him in the camps, and was served food by Dr. Jubas at Belsen.

Bergen Belsen was liberated by the British, and Dr. Jubas–again just a kid–survived the horrifying conditions and hard labor of the camp. He was only 13. Dr. Jubas was briefly adopted and raised by a family that adopted several of the young orphaned Jewish child victims of the Holocaust. But, then, his surviving sisters located him. Two of them were going to Israel and two were moving to the United States. And as a teen, Dr. Jubas had to choose between the two places. He wanted to be educated and felt he’d get the best education in the U.S. When he got here, he had only a fifth grade education. So, he lied about his age, saying he was younger, in order to go to school and get a complete education beyond fifth grade.

Ultimately, Dr. Jubas got his Ph.D. (his Ph.D. thesis is renowned and has been quoted and/or cited in books by others) and became a public school teacher, so that he could provide children the education he was denied as a kid. Dr. Jubas and my late father both learned at the Detroit-based Yeshivat Chachmei Lublin–a prestigious Jewish academy of higher Torah learning, the name of which translates into, “The Academy of the Sages [or Wise Men] of Lublin” (a city in Poland). also got “smichah,” certification as a rabbi. He was also Rabbi Jubas. He frequently taught bar mitzvah lessons to boys, often doing those lessons for free, because he had been denied a bar mitzvah by the Nazis.

Our families were good friends. Dr. Jubas married one of my father’s high school classmates, Shiffy. And Dr. Jubas’ youngest son, Mark, was just a year ahead of me in school. We celebrated Passover together in Miami, and Dr. Jubas and my grandfathers helped found and build the Detroit-area synagogue where we went, Young Israel. When I was a high school student and went to Washington on the “Close Up” program, he was one of the teacher-chaperones, and made sure I had my kosher meal and made sure I was safe and okay.

Dr. Jubas always looked out for me and my family, and our politics were the same. Dr. Jubas was politically conservative on American politics and right-wing on issues like Israel. When I ran for the Michigan House of Representatives twice (the first time, losing by just one vote), Harry Jubas both times happily volunteered and stood out at one of the polling sites in the hot August heat to pass out my campaign literature on the day of the Republican Primary. And he never asked for or expected anything in return. He was a proud religious Jew and a proud American and loved the opportunities this country presented him. And he gave back. He gave a lot of charity and invited people to his home for the Jewish holidays, when he knew they had nowhere else to go and would otherwise be alone.

And though the Nazis took away his childhood, they did not crush his spirit or his legacy. I remember Dr. Jubas as always smiling, always happy, and always cheerful. And always classy and a mensch. He had three wonderful kids who are all successful and–more important–very kind and generous people. And lots of grandchildren.

I am glad that my parents and I were friends with the Jubas family and that my life was touched by Harry Jubas’ generosity. He came from tremendous tragedy and turned his life into something amazing. And we can all learn from that.

Dr. Rabbi Harry Jubas, Zichrono LiVrachah [“Of Blessed Memory”–what we Jews say about another Jew instead of Rest In Peace].

More on Harry Jubas’ amazing story here.

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It is because I knew a real child Holocaust survivor in Harry Jubas that it especially galls me when phonies like Hedy Epstein claim to be child survivors of the Holocaust (she spent her childhood far away from the Holocaust and the camps) to further their disgusting, anti-Israel, far-left, Fergustan BS.