Skip to content
Join our Newsletter

Jack Knox: Former prisoner of war has donated $3 million to charities

Rudi Hoenson was just a teenager when captured during the Second World War, a Dutch soldier swept up in the invasion of what is now Indonesia. Then came 3 1/2 years as a prisoner of war in Japan. “They were brutal,” he says.
VKA-Hoenson_award-0007.jpg
Rudi Hoenson weighed less than 80 pounds when freed from a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp at the end of the Second World War. On Thursday, the man who has quietly funnelled more than $3 million to Victoria charities was honoured with a National Philanthropy Day award.

Rudi Hoenson was just a teenager when captured during the Second World War, a Dutch soldier swept up in the invasion of what is now Indonesia.

Then came 3 1/2 years as a prisoner of war in Japan.

“They were brutal,” he says. “I went in, I was about 130 pounds. I came out, I was less than 80.”

The 90-year-old shies away from making the details public, lets slip only a story about losing five teeth — three upper, two lower — to a rifle butt in the mouth, the cost of not bowing to the satisfaction of a guard.

After all that, Hoenson could be bitter. He’s not.

Instead, having given more than $3 million to charity, he’s the recipient of the Generosity of Spirit Award, bestowed upon him at Vancouver Island’s National Philanthropy Day awards at the Fairmont Empress on Thursday.

He shrugs off both his resilience and his charity. If the war was rough, the peace was prosperous, he says.

His admirers say there’s much more to it than that. For years Hoenson has, with no fanfare, written the cheques that let Victoria’s charities reach their goals.

“Despite seeing humanity at its worst, Rudi has chosen a life of quiet philanthropy — love of humankind,” wrote Jennifer Jasechko, who has been a part of more than one of the charities he has helped.

Hoenson emigrated from postwar Holland in 1951.

“I had a choice between going to the U.S. and going to Canada,” he says. “I picked Canada because of a movie.”

The film was Rose Marie, with Nelson Eddy as a Mountie riding a horse through the wilderness. “It looked so beautiful and interesting.”

Hoenson landed in Calgary, got into the oil business at the start of the boom, gambled well in the stock market, grew comfortable.

“Coming to Canada was wonderful for me,” he says, “but meeting Sylvia was the main reason I recovered.”

Right, Sylvia Mae, the Saskatchewan girl he wed in 1956. They moved to Victoria in 1979, travelled the world together, then, when age began to take its toll, turned to philanthropy.

Their first donation — $20,000 to the Victoria Foundation — started the Rudi and Sylvia Hoenson Foundation, now worth $500,000.

After Sylvia suffered a small stroke, a $55,000 gift brought a piece of stroke-detection equipment to Royal Jubilee Hospital in 2004.

Likewise, when Sylvia had a leg issue, a $25,000 gift to the Queen Alexandra Centre established a gait lab, set up for children with mobility problems.

“It gave us so much enjoyment to hear how many children used that thing,” he says.

It was after Sylvia died in 2008 that he began divesting himself of most of “a small pile of money” — a million bucks to the Victoria Hospital Foundation, $400,000 for a CT scanner and operating rooms at Saanich Peninsula Hospital, another $400,000 to B.C. Children’s Hospital and the QA, $350,000 for B.C. Cancer Foundation research and a similar amount to support his fellow veterans at the Lodge at Broadmead.

It was that last beneficiary that nominated him for Thursday’s award, which Hoenson accepted in honour of all those taken prisoner during the Pacific campaign, and for Sylvia. “I miss the love of my life very much,” he told the crowd.

Thursday’s other honorees:

• The Outstanding Volunteer Award was presented to UVic professor and author Rebecca Grant, who has been deeply involved with the United Way since 2002, has chaired the Greater Victoria Chamber of Commerce and the University Club board, has sat on the Telus community board and volunteers with Ballet Victoria.

• The Outstanding Philanthropic Service Club Award went to the Independent Order of Odd Fellows’ Columbia Lodge, whose contributions included gathering more than 6,000 kilograms of food for the Mustard Seed in the past three years and, this year, providing Christmas dinner for 225 families, meeting the total demand for dinner hampers.

• The Corporate Citizenship Award went to the Nanaimo-based Coastal Community Credit Union.

• The kids on Reynolds Secondary’s Cops for Cancer organizing committee took the Youth In Philanthropy Award.

In the past nine years, Reynolds has raised $465,000 for the Tour de Rock, including $95,000 this year alone. Fifteen per cent of Reynolds’ students, including dozens of teenage girls, shaved their heads to raise money for the cause.

Hoenson and the kids were all beaming while posing together for photos at the end of the night.