During the 1970s, when nazi war criminal Andrija Artukovic was on trial for lying about his past on immigration papers, Irv Rubin escorted Handel's father, a Holocaust survivor and trial witness, to court daily after he received threats from members of the L.A. Croatian community who supported Artukovic. Rubin and Handel's relations became strained during the 1990s, however, when Rubin singlehandedly stopped Handel from giving "vacations" to the Auschwitz death camp to two neo-Nazis. Handel claimed the trip he was to take with these vile Jew-haters to Poland would prove the historical fact of the Holocaust to presumably hope they would change their evil ways. After the issue blew over, Handel and Rubin continued their friendship.