Rudolf Heymann was born in Eppendorf in 1925 and grew up in Husumer Strasse. He attended the Reform Temple in Oberstrasse with his parents. After completing elementary school, Thedsen am Jungfrauenthal, he transferred to Wilhelmgymnasium high school. His father was a merchant who traded in animal hides and skins, particularly in Latin America. In 1938, the family emigrated to Montevideo, where they joined the German-Jewish congregation there. Rudolf Heymann soon went his own way and found access to Socialist circles around the magazine "Das andere Deutschland" [The other Germany]. These circles were also influenced by the Wandervogel [“rambling bird”] youth movement. Through Franz Fink, he came into contact with Zionist ideas and began to get involved in the Zionist movement, preparing young people for their emigration to Palestine/Israel. In 1949, he emigrated to Israel, where he set up a kibbutz belonging to the socialist Haschomer Hazair or Mapam. He had his parents join him three years later. From 1958 to 1960, Rudolf Heymann was in Berlin to prepare young people in the Zionist Youth of Germany for emigration to Israel. In Berlin, Rudolf Heymann met his future wife, with whom he returned to Israel, where the couple had two daughters. Rudolf Heymann no longer lived in the kibbutz, but in a wool combing factory in the port city of Ashdod, while his wife taught German in Tel Aviv. The family moved to Hamburg in 1972. Rudolf Heymann first found work in the Higher Education Office Hochschulamt and later in the Senate Chancellery, where he worked in the visiting program for former Hamburg residents.