Rudi Florian Obituary (1934 - 2025)

Rudi Norbert Florian passed away at age 91 on the evening of September 15, 2025 at Harvard Square, the senior living facility where he had been a resident since November 8, 2024. He passed away from respiratory and congestive heart failure brought on by old age and exacerbated by a bout with Covid in early October 2024. He passed away peacefully in the company of his wife Kris, his daughter Carol, and his son Frank. He was surrounded by their love as he made the transition from this life. Rudi was born on May 25, 1934 in Schneidemühl, a town in pre-war Germany that was near the Polish border. His parents, Leo and Marie Florian, owned the largest butcher shop in town and were devout Catholics. He had three siblings. Hans-Joachim was his older brother and Elisabeth was his older sister. He is survived by his younger sister, Irmentraud, who lives in Berlin, Germany with her husband Eckhard. In early 1945 his family fled from their home in Schneidemühl into Poland after the Russians advancing from the East occupied their town. They were expelled from Poland at the end of 1945 and found their way to Berlin as refugees, where they initially stayed at a house owned by his father’s sister. They eventually settled in the Kreuzberg district of West Berlin, where his parents opened another butcher shop. In June 1956 Rudi immigrated to Canada, where he lived and worked at a few different jobs for almost a year. In May 1957 he immigrated to the United States and then enlisted in the US Air Force two months later in July. On his second assignment to Prüm Air Base in Germany after completing basic training and technical training to become a radar technician, he visited his family in Berlin and met his future wife Kriemhild Schiller (aka Kris). They fell in love, and after a courtship of over a year, they were married on May 14, 1962. They had two children, Frank, who was born on March 7, 1963, and Carol, who was born on September 30, 1964. Over the course of his 30-year career in the Air Force, Rudi served assignments at various bases located in the United States as well as abroad. These included assignments in Germany, New Mexico, where his son Frank was born, Florida, where his daughter Carol was born, Spain, Illinois, Arizona, and Texas. He also did remote assignments in Thailand, Vietnam, Canada, and Alaska. He retired from the Air Force on August 1, 1987 with an honorable discharge and settled with his wife Kris in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where they lived for many years. Rudi loved his time in New Mexico, but in 2011 he and Kris made a decision to leave Albuquerque and move to Denver, Colorado to be closer to their daughter Carol and son-in-law Paull. His son Frank also moved to Denver in October 2016 to be closer to his parents as they got older. The family was close and went on many trips together, exploring various places throughout Colorado as well as taking vacations in California and Hawaii together. Rudi and Kris became enthusiastic students of A Course in Miracles while they lived in Albuquerque. They made many dear and lifelong friends in the Course groups they attended over the years. Rudi also devoted much of his time to volunteering at the New Mexico Holocaust and Intolerance Museum in Albuquerque, which opened in 2001. After learning about what his countrymen and women had done in the Holocaust during World War II, he educated himself about the Holocaust and other genocides and vowed to speak out against all forms of hate and intolerance for the rest of his life. Rudi continued his work of speaking out against hate and intolerance in all its form by volunteering at the Mizel Museum in Denver starting in 2012. Rudi was a good and honest man who believed strongly in treating all men and women with decency and dignity, hence his passion for speaking out against hate and intolerance in his later years. His sense of adventure that led to him leaving home at the age of 22 and joining the US Air Force to see the world was a gift to his family, who were able to travel to new places and experience different cultures together as a result of those travels. He had a zest for learning new things and was a voracious reader until his failing eyesight no longer allowed him to do so in his later years. He will be deeply missed by family and friends who loved him dearly.