Pieter Rudolph Zeeman

Pieter Rudolph (Rudy) Zeeman was born in the Dutch East Indies in 1919 and spent his early childhood years there. After finishing high school in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, he entered tertiary education. In 1943, he escaped the Nazi occupation of Holland to England and joined the Free Dutch Forces. He then served in Australia and the former Dutch East Indies. After World War II, Rudy was awarded both the Kruis van Verdienste (Cross of Merit) and the Verzetsherdenkings (Resistance Cross) by the...See more

Pieter Rudolph (Rudy) Zeeman was born in the Dutch East Indies in 1919 and spent his early childhood years there. After finishing high school in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, he entered tertiary education. In 1943, he escaped the Nazi occupation of Holland to England and joined the Free Dutch Forces. He then served in Australia and the former Dutch East Indies. After World War II, Rudy was awarded both the Kruis van Verdienste (Cross of Merit) and the Verzetsherdenkings (Resistance Cross) by the Queen of the Netherlands. After returning to civil life, Rudy joined a large Dutch international import/export and shipping company in Rotterdam (Internationale Crediet en Handels Mij). He worked mainly in the Far East with this company, exporting such products as rubber, sugar, tea, coffee and essential oils, and rose to the position of Export Manager. In 1963, after a stint at the Company's Head Office in Rotterdam, he decided it was time to return to a warmer climate and moved to Sydney, Australia where he represented a nylon extrusion business and then took up a management role in Real Estate. In 1986, he retired to Tasmania for family reasons. Aged 100 years at the time of publication of his Memoir, Rudy lives with Berna, his one and only wife for 74 years, in Launceston, Tasmania, Australia. See less