Tom Egri
Tom was born in Budapest, Hungary in April 1939. His father was arrested by the Arrow Cross in 1944 and never returned. Tom and his mother survived the war but only to suffer under Communist rule after. Sports always played a big part in Tom’s life, particularly volleyball which he played at European Championship level. Tom’s first attempt to escape Hungary was unsuccessful but his second try saw him get to Austria and then on to England. Tom worked in various sectors, most notably the textile industry. Sadly, Tom passed away in October 2019. (Budapest Ghetto, Siege of Budapest, Brought to UK by Jewish Agency, Return visit to country of birth)
You can put so many things down to chance, but what you might think was pure chance, to me was a miracle: that I survived, that we were not deported to Poland when I was a baby. I didn’t know what was happening, but that was a miracle because we would have died in Poland, there is no question about that. We survived the Holocaust. People helped us and gave us food and sheltered us and even people who were arrested who knew we were Jewish didn’t give us away, and that was a miracle.
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