He (Otto Komoly) is the one who has most embraced his father’s Zionist ideas from a young age. He could still graduate - like my father, I didn't say that - so he and my father could graduate from the Technical University of Budapest before the Numerus Clausus. He soon grasped Zionist ideas and from then on he wrote a lot about Zionism, the Jewish state, the language of the Jewish state. He re-established the Hungarian Zionist Association, and when the Holocaust came, he was appointed head of the Swiss Red Cross Class A. He organized the Jewish rescue very successfully. I don't know if you know Viola what was the Kastner train and Kastner Rezső? This is a separate story, I will not go into that. He organized the Kastner train with Rezső Kastner. Plenty of them came to beg Bérkocsis Street to pick them up on the train. Three seats were reserved for him on the train. You know that this train from Bergen-Belsen went to Switzerland in two shifts. The principle was what Kastner organized to gun for blood. It was a moot point. They gave a great deal of money to the Germans for saying that the train would be handed over to Switzerland. Otto Komoly was given three seats. Otto Komoly said he would be immoral if he went on this train, his wife didn't go either, but they asked their daughter for a seat. Their daughter Lea, my cousin, left and was accompanied by Dora and her husband. Later on, they will play a big role in my life. And I say the principle was then inward on the train, so that the famous Jews and the rich Jews were taken on the train. Lots of famous rabbis got on the train like that, but I’m not going to get into that right now because it’s a long separate topic.
German occupation. Yes. And that a yellow star should be sewn up. And then I remember I had some disease, I think I had a sore throat. And I have to say that if I was sick, I could always lie in my mother’s bed. And then Dora came to visit me and then Dora told me so beautifully that "from tomorrow we have to sew up the yellow star, Jutik but don't be ashamed because it's a badge of the Jews and you have to wear it proudly, don't be ashamed of it because it's our badge, it's David's shield and see how beautiful velvet it is. " She already had the yellow velvet by then, and even my mother was told when my mother bought the material, then there in the Kén street grocery store, she was told, "Mrs, line up the star with red velvet, because soon you have to turn it over." Imagine, that's what my mother was told. My mother was very happy about that, really. And then Dora sat there by my bed for a long time and told me not to be ashamed and that I would sew it up and it was David’s shield and I didn’t have to be ashamed.
I went to school in 1940 and imagine Viola, it was here at Bakát Square. So for me now, the fact that I am here moves a lot of memories, because I went to the school in Bakát Square for 4 years and in the meantime I had to learn that I am not like the others and I got a lot of bad things for that. It’s not good to remember that, but now I will recall this memory so it will remain. So it was here at Bakát Square, the religion class was already in the first class and they told those of other religions to go elsewhere for religion classes. We went, there was some rabbi or teacher of faith, he taught pretty badly. There were a couple more Jewish girls in the class, so I wasn’t alone. Then we went to this religion class, absolutely not interested in what was taught there. However, I was more interested in the fact that the “kind” teacher asked me - she was already sitting on the podium, the heating was bad. I had a very good teacher in first and second grade and there was nothing bad yet, I didn’t know I was Jewish, I had a different religion, and that’s all. But then the third-grade teacher, the wife of a colonel, was sitting on the podium in fur coat and suddenly said, "Who remembers what she was called before?" So what does a zealous little school student do, so it turns out that I know and a couple more have raised their hands. “What was your name before? “Kohn” But I was never called Kohn, I was born Judit Komoly. Imagine Viola that I was called only Kohn from then on. Kohn stand up, Kohn answer. Well, that was my first good little experience.
Born on October 5th, 1933 in Budapest, from her mother’s first and her father’s second marriage. Her parents got married in 1932. Her father was the chief engineer of the Hungarian Petroleum Industry Co. She was not raised in a religious family but despite that the Holocaust had an effect on the family. Her mother was deported and murdered in a concentration camp. She was a family member of Ottó Komoly, who re-founded the Hungarian Zionist Association and saved thousants of jews in Hungary. Judit survived the war in Budapest and later became an educator and teacher. Later became a psychology professor and after her retirement worked for the Hungarian Jewish University.
