Rudnicki, Eduard, 1898-1979

Eduard Rudnicki, better known as Eli Rottner, was born on March 8, 1898 in Stryj, East Galicia. From the age of 8 until the age of 16 he was living in Kolomea and left this town and his parents for Vienna in 1910. He was fighting in World War I from 1916-1918 as a soldier on the Austrian side. In 1918, he returned to Kolomea with his troop which was demobilized there in November of the same year.

His friend Schlomo Ball introduced Rudnicki to the Jewish Zionist youth organization Haschomer being a member himself. In the spring of 1919, however, they formed their own youth group working on a farm in Slobodka-Lesna in order to enlarge their agricultural abilities aiming to immigrate to Palestine in the near future. In June 1919, a pogrom in this town, in which several were killed and others badly injured, forced Rudnicki and Ball to leave Slobodka-Lesna. They illegally fled to Czernowitz, which was Rumanian territory since 1918.

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