Abel Richard

Abel, Richard Sergeant Richard Abel, a German, served with the Axis troops who overran Tunisia in November 1942, in the wake of the Allied landing in North Africa. Shortly after the German invasion, the persecution of the Jewish population began. Five young Jews, among them Luigi (Louis) Beretvas, a medical student, hid on a remote farm at Depienne, not far from the Allied lines. A local Italian citizen who observed them talking to a British reconnaissance unit reported them to the approaching German forces. They were arrested by German paratroopers on December 10, 1942, charged with spying, and were threatened to be turned over to the SS. However, Abel urged Beretvas and his friends to escape and cross over the lines in the direction of the Allied forces. As this was so contrary to the kind of behavior they expected from a German soldier, the young Jews hesitated, suspecting a trap. But the German sergeant earned their confidence by providing them with food, a pistol, and a military map on which the nearby minefields were traced. He then sent the guard away on some pretext and called the prisoners out one by one in order to make their escape. Somewhat later Abel visited Beretvas’s parents in Tunis, briefed them on what had happened, and handed them a hastily written letter from their son. As the Jewish physician and his wife looked dumbfounded at the uniformed German sergeant, he remarked, smilingly, “Das ist schwer glaublich, von einem Deutschen, nicht wahr?” (“This is hard to believe of a German, isn’t it?”). Abel was later captured with the rest of the German forces in North Africa and detained in POW camps in Britain and in the United States until the end of the war. After his liberation, he once again contacted the Beretvas family and visited them in Geneva. On January 2, 1969, Yad Vashem recognized Richard Abel as Righteous Among the Nations.