Hoselitz, Rudolf

Plot Location	Sai Wan Memorial Column 34
Surname	Hoselitz
Given Name(s)	Rudolf
Place of Birth	Žabokreky nad Nitrou, Slovakia?
Date of Birth (Eng)	1883
Date of Birth (Heb)
Date of Death (Eng)	December 21, 1941
Date of Death (Heb)
Age at Death	58
Hebrew Name
Spouse’s Name	Rachil Hoselitz
Father’s Name	Franz Hoselitz
Mother’s Name	Johanna Nagel
Other Surnames
Sex	M
Marital Status	M
Maiden Name
Service Rank	Volunteer
Religious Status (כ/ל/י)
Cause of Death	Wounded in action
Other Family Data	Daughter: Lily Hoselitz Hindley (b. August 20, 1931, Tianjin) Siblings: Arthur Hoselitz (b. 1873; d. 1953), Gyula Hoselitz (b. 1875; d. 1925, Budapest), Etelka Hoselitz Tannert (b. 1877; d. 1944), Bela Hoselitz (b. April 5, 1879, Žabokreky nad Nitrou, Slovakia; d. March 17, 1959, Hove, UK) and Ernst Hoselitz (b. August 11, 1886, Žabokreky nad Nitrou, Slovakia; d. December 30, 1972, LA)
Inscription (Eng)
Inscription (Heb)
Inscription (Other)
Historical	Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps, service number 5169. He was a member of the Hughes Division of the HKVDC, who were known as the Hughsiliers (or jokingly as the “Methusiliers”). It was a group formed by Lt. Col. A. W. Hughes, and made up of men in their 50s or 60s, many of whom had seen service in WWI. Rudolph died of his wounds on 21 December at North Point Refugee Camp. He was probably wounded two days earlier at the heroic defense by the Hughsiliers of the power station belonging to China Light and Power. Rudolph was imprisoned in Siberia around 1919. After he was released, he travelled to Egypt and then to China in 1926. He obtained his Doctor of Law from the University of Budapest, and practiced law for two years in Beijing, and then for 12 years in Tientsin (now Tianjin) where, for a time, he was associated with Raoul Fermus in law offices on Rue de Paris. In 1923, he acted for the Crisp Group in negotiating a $20 million loan to the Chinese government, which was controversial at the time, as it went against the British government’s intent to give the Hong Kong Bank a monopoly on such loans. Called as an expert witness in a 1939 Hong Kong court case involving smuggled cattle seized by police, he claimed that he was well acquainted with Chinese and international law. He seems to have been well integrated into Hong Kong life. The SCMP reported in January 1939 that he attended a social tea organized by the Theosophical Society, where a well-known mystic answered “a perfect hail of questions” on yoga. He and his wife, Rachil (who was born in Vladivostok to Slovakian parents), were living in Tsingtao at the time of his death. Their daughter, Lily, attended Kowloon Junior School in HK in March 1940, but, by June 1941, she was winning sports prizes at the St Giles British School in Tsingtao, after having been evacuated in July 1940 with her mother on the SS President Taft. After the war, both mother and daughter emigrated to California where Lily (who later married Douglas Hindley) became a naturalized American citizen. His father was a doctor.

Do you have any information about this person that you would like to share? If so, we’d like to hear from you!