Rudolph E. Friedman Collection

Rudolf Friedmann was born in 1914 in the city of Danzig (today Gdańsk, Poland), the youngest son of Benno Friedmann and Lily Elisabeth Friedmann (née Hirsch, called Else). Rudolf had an older brother, Walter, born in 1911. In 1903 Benno had moved to Danzig, where he purchased a business that sold flour; it became a grain brokerage business known as Davidsohn and Friedmann and later as Davidsohn, Friedmann, and Nelbert. The business largely handled Polish grain exports.

Rudolf (also called Rudi) attended the Realgymnasium zu St. Johann in Danzig from 1920 until 1930. From May 1930-1933 he worked as an apprentice for the firm J. Adler Junior, a scrap metal business in Frankfurt am Main. While in Frankfurt he also studied economics for four years. From January 1933-July 1934 he worked at the Industrialwerke Rustringen in Wilhelmshaven, part of J. Adler Junior. After his father's business partner became sick Rudolf returned to Danzig to assume his duties in the family firm. In 1937 his brother Walter emigrated to the United States. Rudolf did the same in February 1938, traveling via Belgium and England, and sailing for America on the S.S. Champlain; he arrived in New York on February 29, 1938.

Rudolf Friedmann spent his first few months in New York, where his brother Walter lived, but through the help of the National Coordinating Committee in May 1938 he found a position as a clerk in Louisville, Kentucky at the Liberty National Bank. After coming to the realization that the position would not allow him to grow professionally, in November 1938 he left Kentucky for Los Angeles, California, travelling across the Western states by bus. There he found a position as a tour guide at the 1939 Golden Gate Exposition on Treasure Island.

Meanwhile, Rudolf and Walter's parents, Benno and Else Friedmann had also been working to join their sons in America. In June 1938 they left Danzig for Brussels, Belgium, where they waited for their American visas. In August 1939 they received visas and the following month they went to Rotterdam, where they sailed on the ship Nieuw Amsterdam to New York. After a brief stay in New York, in October 1939 they journeyed to San Francisco, where Rudolf had arranged an apartment for them.

In November 1939 Rudolf found a position as the assistant manager of a Coca-Cola bottling plant and moved to Redding, California. On February 1, 1941 he was inducted into the American Army. His first two-and-a-half years were spent as part of the 250th Coast Artillery at Fort Raymond, outside of Seward, Alaska. In 1943 he became an American citizen and changed the spelling of his name to Rudolph Ernest Friedman. From February-April 1944 he trained at the army's Military Intelligence Training School at Camp Ritchie, Maryland. In November 1944, with the rank of Master Sergeant, Rudolph Friedman was deployed to Europe as part of the Interrogators of Prisoners of War (IPW) Team 164, attached to the Seventh Army. After a stay in England, he was sent to France in January 1945, where his unit went through France and Germany, often on the front line, where they came under attack from Nazi forces. After the end of the war in Europe he assisted in the surrender of German forces and also met concentration camp victims. In September 1945 he was sent home, honorably discharged from service at Fort Dix, New Jersey on September 24, 1945. While in the Army he was awarded a Bronze Star Medal for meritorious service in France and Germany.

After the war he decided not to return to Redding, but settled in San Francisco where his mother lived, who was widowed when Benno Friedmann died of cancer in February 1945. On August 3, 1947 he married Mara Jedeikin; the couple had three sons. He worked in sales and later became a real estate broker who specialized in the sales and leasing of commercial and industrial properties on the San Francisco peninsula. His mother Else died in July 1979.

Rudolph Friedman died on December 28, 1999 in Hillsborough, California.