Tomi Komoly and Trudy Gold
Buying Lives with Time: The Impossible Fight of Ottó Komoly

Tomi was born into a Hungarian Jewish middle class family in Budapest, where his paternal grandfather and uncle were early Zionist leaders. He survived the Holocaust in hiding, losing his father and most members of his family. After the war he endured communist schooling, and in 1956 escaped Hungary after three attempts, eventually reaching Britain as a refugee. He went on to study engineering on a scholarship and later built a long international career with ICI, travelling to more than fifty countries. Tomi married Gill in 1966, and they have two daughters and seven grandchildren in New Jersey and Sydney. Since 2016 he has shared his Holocaust testimony through the Holocaust Educational Trust, speaking to more than 27,000 people across schools, companies, government departments, synagogues, prisons, and national events. He received the British Empire Medal in 2020 for his contribution to Holocaust education. He continues to speak for HET and the Northern Holocaust Educational Group, and takes part in annual civic commemorations. Apart from his book about his uncle Ottó he also published books about laboratory deign and Hungarian desserts.

Trudy Gold was the CEO of the London Jewish Cultural Centre and a founding member of the British delegation to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA). Throughout her career she taught modern Jewish history at schools, universities, and to adult groups and ran seminars on Holocaust education in the UK, Eastern Europe, and China. She also led Jewish educational tours all over the world. Trudy was the educational director of the student resources “Understanding the Holocaust” and “Holocaust Explained” and the author of The Timechart History of Jewish Civilization.