Reuel Abraham
Reuel Abraham · Converts to Judaism
Luftwaffe pilot who, after witnessing an SS execution of Jews in Poland, sabotaged his own bombs; he then mined coal for twenty years and gave two thirds of his wages anonymously to Jewish orphans and survivors before settling in Israel and converting to Judaism
1924, Allemagne (né Karl Heinz Schneider) — 1995
Allemagne et Israël
Reuel Abraham is recognized among Israeli contributors to Converts to Judaism — Luftwaffe pilot who, after witnessing an SS execution of Jews in Poland, sabotaged his own bombs; he then mined coal for twenty years and gave two thirds of his wages anonymously to Jewish orphans and survivors before settling in Israel and converting to Judaism
Reuel Abraham was born Karl Heinz Schneider in Germany, passed through the Hitler Youth and joined the Luftwaffe in 1942 as a dive-bomber pilot. Stationed in Poland, he witnessed the SS execute a group of Jews; from then on, by his own account, he feigned illness to avoid missions, missed the targets he was given and tampered with his bombs so that they would not go off. As a penance after the war he spent twenty years working as a coal miner and gave away two thirds of his wages, anonymously, to organisations that supported Jewish orphans and survivors of the camps.
In 1965 he emigrated to Israel, bought a farm in Galilee, took the name Reuel Abraham, was circumcised in a hospital in Haifa, converted to Judaism and became an Israeli citizen. He is reported to have been the first former Nazi to convert; he died in Israel in 1995.
Verify and go deeper with these external references.
Source: Wikipedia — Reuel Abraham
This page is published in seven languages from an English source. The translations are reviewed, but a mistake can still slip through. If you spot one on this profile — a wrong word, a lost date, a sentence that says something the English does not — please tell us.
Luftwaffe pilot who, after witnessing an SS execution of Jews in Poland, sabotaged his own bombs; he then mined coal for twenty years and gave two thirds of his wages anonymously to Jewish orphans and survivors before settling in Israel and converting to Judaism
Source: Wikipedia — Reuel Abraham
