A new family and a new country

Rudy and Mella, 1950

And we are back from our detour, to continue with Rudy's story.

Rudy's and Leah's marriage did not last long and they got divorced circa 1943. Rudy is again alone without any family (all of them murdered by the Nazis).

It's time to connect the dots. Remember Leah's friend Elfi? Yes, that's the same Elfi we met in our last chapter- Mella's sister and Malachi's wife. We can only assume that Rudy met Elfi through Leah and perhaps he even met Mella back then. Regardless, in 1948, after Mella lost Yehoshua, Rudy definitely knew her, fell in love, and courted her. Mella was not indifferent to his courtship, and after some time, they got married. 

Ziva and Ariel, who lost their dad, received a step dad and a loving one. While Rudy and Mella turned a page and both started a new chapter in life, Rudy insisted that they keep strong ties with Yehoshua's family. Ziva remembers the Saturday routine- Rudy walking with Mella and the kids to Hanna and Yitzhak Shisha Halevi (Yehoshua's parents) to spend a few hours there. The bond with the Shisha Halevi family stayed strong throughout their lives. 

To quote Ziva- "Rudy saved a family in Israel". She describes him as a loving and devoted father

Rudy and Mella

As the new family is starting their life together, we should go back to Rudy's second love- the railroad workshop. 

As a reminder, Israel was just founded. In the first years of the new country, the railway system expanded, but the main problem was that the local cars and steam engines were old and pretty useless. Beyond training many new employees, the Israel railroad was faced with a major challenge- to buy modern trains and equipment. For that they needed money and they needed experts.

The money eventually came from the German compensation funds. The experts? We know at least one of them. Rudy was strongly involved in a series of purchases of new diesel engines as well as new cars from Europe throughout the 50s, and as such- responsible for establishing a modern railway system in the young and developing country. 

He then became the Manager of the Technical office at the Kishon Works. Throughout his career in the railway system, both before Israel's independence and after, Rudy earned a reputation of a professional expert in the field. As a young colleague testified- "If I found a nail or an iron piece, Rudy would tell me which train car or engine that piece came from". Aharon Gazit, a journalist that became almost addicted to the trains world and had many "Rudy hours" told me that Rudy was simply the number one expert in the system. He was also very honest and efficient. He made sure nobody spends too much and renovated anything possible.

Rudy changed his formal name to Avraham Ben Raphael and used it to sign on his  professional writings (see below for two examples).

Upon retirement, Rudy did not stop advocating for the Israel railway. He promoted the creation of the railway museum (which eventually opened in 1983, and my thanks to its director Hen Meling for corresponding with me about Rudy) and especially wanted make sure that old documents and structural drawings would be stored in an archive (see picture below).To this day, letters, telegrams, drawings, and other documents written by Rudy are stored in the archives. 

An exhibit from the current Railroad museum in Haifa

Excerpt from Rudy's memoires, found in the Railroad archive

Rudy pushing to create an archive and store old drawings

It is impossible to describe a life of one person in one blog. The story I wrote here provided just a glance into the life of a simple, decent human being. Each of us share their own story and our stories tell the story of generations before and after us. Rudy and Mella stories tell the life of European Jews, the Holocaust and the loss of entire families, the birth of a new nation, and the perseverance of good people that strive to have a peaceful and productive life. 

Rudy lived to the age of 77. He never had biological children but he regarded Ziva and Ariel as his own. Ariel remembers (with tears) how he wanted to study linguistics but was sent away since he had no background in Latin. When Rudy heard that, he order a series of Latin 101 books from Germany, only to start Ariel's academic career. Noteworthy that Ariels is a Professor for ....Linguistics. Rudy was fortunate to see the kids starting their own families and giving rise to a new generation. There is even a grandson named Rudy.

"He was one of Lamed-Vav Tsadidkim", his daughter Ziva said. "Never had any bad word to say about anybody. He saved a family in Israel and continued to support and love his step children throughout life."

Rudy passed away on September 25, 1988. Mella died 14 years later.

On his gravestone his family wrote:"Atzil Hanefesh"- The noble soul.