One of the four soldiers whose deaths were announced by the IDF on Monday morning was Uriah Bayer, 20, from the city of Ma’alot-Tarshisha in northern Israel.

Uriah is the grandson of an evangelical Christian family who immigrated to Israel from Germany in the 1970s to atone for the actions of the Nazis by dedicating their lives to the care of Holocaust survivors.

Uriah’s family established a non-profit kosher nursing home in the Galil for Holocaust survivors, where they take care of all their needs with great devotion until this day.

All their grandchildren served in the IDF. Uriah followed in the footsteps of his three older siblings and served as a commando soldier in the Magellan unit. He served as a volunteer since he is not an Israeli citizen.

He died of his wounds after being seriously injured in a battle against the “new Nazis” in Gaza three days ago.

Uriah’s sister, Odelia, spoke about her family history in a Ynet interview four years ago. “My grandfather is a German national who spent his whole life in Germany and remembers very well Nazi Germany and how they abused innocent Jews. He always dreamed of fixing, changing and trying to atone for everything that happened by helping the Jewish people.”

“As a result, just over 50 years ago, they joined the Zedakah organization and ran the Beit El rehabilitation center in Shavei Tzion,” she said. “Later, my grandfather and grandmother understood that it was not enough; there was still more to be done. So they founded the Beit Eliezer nursing home for Holocaust survivors in Ma’alot Tarshiha.”

Ynet reported that Uriah’s uncle currently manages the nursing home. “We’re here under the divine command which calls on us to comfort and assist the people of Israel, and we see it as our mission,” Micha Bayer, a member of the Evangelical church, explained two weeks before the outbreak of the war. “We don’t engage in missionary activity here. We operate for the benefit of the helpless out of our love for Israel, which stems from the scriptures.”

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)