Rüdiger Eichholz

Rüdiger Eichholz (May 1, 1922 in Stralsund, Germany – September 5, 2000 in Cobourg, Ontario), was a Canadian physicist and Esperantist and a member of the Esperanto Academy. (In Canada he often styled his first name as "Ruediger" or "Rudi".) He is best known for publishing the "Esperanto picture dictionary" (1988) and a massive anthology co-edited with his wife, Esperanto in the Modern World (1982).

In 1949, then living in Göttingen, West Germany, he became a delegate to the World Congress of Esperanto held in Bournemouth, England, but in 1953 he and his Esperantist wife Vilma (1926–1995) emigrated to Toronto, Canada and were thereafter pillars of the Esperanto movement. In 1956 they moved to a house they bought in the countryside near Oakville, 30 km west of Toronto. On July 18, 1959, he and Vilma opened their house as a cultural centre for Esperantists, and in July 1960 they hosted the second congress of the Canadian Esperanto Association (Kanada Esperanto-Asocio or KEA) after its reconstitution in 1958. In the years to follow, Vilma taught Esperanto courses there, and the couple founded several local Canadian Esperanto clubs. The Eichholz couple educated their son Alko and their daughters Suna and Brila as native Esperanto speakers.

Eichholz purchased printing machinery and became a printer and publisher of books in Esperanto and of books about the language as well. A few of them were Vilma's works. Through his Esperanto Press, Eichholz printed periodicals and informational bulletins of the KEA. Because it was not possible to send money to Canada in some of the countries where he sold books, he accepted other Esperanto books in exchange, and so he also became a Canadian bookseller of Esperanto works published abroad. From that beginning grew the Libroservo de KEA ("KEA book service"). In 1961 he became editor of the periodical Kanada Esperanto-Revuo. At that time he and Vilma were also extremely active in publicizing Esperanto and his bookselling business had begun to take too much of his time, so he sold his book inventory to the KEA. Though he did not always agree with decisions of the association, he remained a passionate collaborator of the KEA for the rest of his life and was elected an honorary member in 1995.

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