By the time World War II ended, Rabe was 63 years old with a family of six that had not any source for life at all. But the Chinese people never forgot their upright and kind-hearted old friend. The Nanjing City Assembly established a fund-raising committee for the Rabes when they heard about the embarrassing situation of the family and soon 2,000 US dollars wes collected and sent to Rabe.

John Rabe and his family after World War II（Dora and John Rabe with their daughter and son-in-law and their two granddaughters）

The paper for establishment of the Rabe Fund-raising Committee, issued by Nanjing City Assembly 

Mr. Shen Yi, Mayor of Nanjing, purchased milk powder, sausage, tea, and beef in Switzerland in March 1948 and sent them to Rabe. People from different walks of life in Nanjing unanimously decided to send a package of food to Rabe every month, hoping in this way to repay his invaluable help to the people of Nanjing. Rabe wrote back twice, telling his friends how the friendly help from Nanjing restored his faith in life.

Rabe’s letter to Shen Yi, Mayor of Nanjing after he received the package of food and money

January 5, 1950, John Rabe fell down on the floor in his office of Siemens and his colleagues brought him home. He passed away in a stroke at midnight and was buried in Berlin.

John and Dora Rabe, 1947

John Rabe in Heidelberg in the summer of 1949

The letter written by John Rabe on November 23 about his last birthday

In April, 1997, relatives of Mr. Rabe presented his tombstone to the Memorial Hall of the Victims in Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders. Sixty years after he left Nanjing, the soul of Mr. Rabe came back to the city, his second hometown

Grave of John Rabe, Berlin, May 2011