As I Am Presently Known

Months after World War II officially ends, a 15-year-old boy still hides in a potato field. The horror of the Holocaust is followed by the horror of survival. The question “Why me?” haunts survivors for the rest of our lives. For some of us, life is only possible under the anesthesia of silence. After 63 years, Leon Rubinstein has broken his silence with this book. As I Am Presently Known is a remarkable story of life’s victory over death and about one generation passing the torch to another.

Marian Marzynski
Holocaust survivor, documentary filmmaker, author of acclaimed film Shtetl


The story of the Jewish people in the twentieth century is one of the great dramas of modern times. It has everything, from the searing tragedy of the Holocaust to the heroic creation of the State of Israel to the emergence of the Jewish community in the United States as the largest and most successful Jewish community in the world. Most people, when they search for the human dimension to these epochal events, come to know the Holocaust through the writings of Anne Frank or Elie Wiesel. They see Israel through the eyes of David Ben-Gurion or Golda Meir. When I look for the human story of what it must have felt like to be a Jew in the twentieth century, I think of my friend and congregant Leon Rubinstein.

Leon experienced it all. Born into the comfortable security of a loving family in a small town in Poland, he would see his world fall apart when the Nazis invaded. He saw his parents led away to be murdered, he experienced the kindness of a Polish Christian and the cruelty of other Polish Christians. After the war, he made his way to Israel, served in the Israeli army and then found a new life and family in America.

Harold Kushner
Rabbi Laureate of Temple Israel of Natick
 

Foreword 5
Preface 9
Note to Readers 11
I. Childhood in Poland, 1930-1945
My Family Home 15
Meals and Holidays 21
My Parents and Grandparents 27
Raising the Children 29
Wolf’s Work 33
The Community of Koretz 39
Education 43
The Russian Invasion 47
The German Invasion 53
The Ghetto 57
Hiding in Richk 61
Discovered by the Red Army 67
Novograd Volynsk 73
To the Orphanage 77
Displaced Persons Camp 81
II. Teenage Years in Palestine, 1946-1950
Smuggled into Palestine 89
Kibbutz Yagur 93
The Koretzor Society 97
Unrest in Palestine 101
War of Independence 105
Haifa 113
Bound for America 123
III. Young Man in America, 1951-1954
Transatlantic Crossing 131
Settling in Winthrop 137
The American Lifestyle 143
Overstaying My Welcome 149
Learning a Trade 157
Dating 159
Newlyweds 165
Back in Israel 167
Home 177
Looking Back: A Conversation with Leon Rubinstein 181
Epilogue 203
Glossary of Terms 205
About the Authors