Joseph Rebhun (1921–2014)

Joseph Rebhun was born to a Jewish family in Przemysl, Poland, a son of Baruch and
Serel Rebhun. He had three siblings. They lived first under Russian occupation in 1939 and then Nazi Germany invaded Poland in World War II. The family was then forced into a ghetto and in 1942 deported to the death camp at Auschwitz. At age 21, while on the train to Auschwitz, he took a "leap to life," as he called it, and jumped from the moving transport. He was shot in the head, but a doctor saved his life. For the rest of the war, he passed as a non-Jew and survived. He moved to Austria and attended medical school at the University of Innsbruck, graduating in 1950. In 1945, he met and married Marie Birkenhejm, a fellow Pole, who had fled eastward and survived 12 different death camps. They emigrated to the USA and had three children. They lived in New Jersey, New York, and Illinois for Dr. Rebhun's work, and eventually settled in Claremont, California. He practiced as an allergist and immunologist and was clinical professor of medicine at the University of Southern California from 1965 to 1991. He published several books on the Holocaust, including memoirs. He also wrote A Bridge to the Generations, inspired by his wife Marie's experiences.