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JACKTRAMIEL, who has died aged 83, was, as the founder of Commodore computers, every bit as important as Apple's Steve Jobs in ushering in the digital information age.
Born Idek Trzmiel on December 13 1928 in the Polish city of Lodz, he was almost 11 when the Nazis invaded Poland in September 1939. Confined to a ghetto, he and his family were eventually shipped to Auschwitz in August 1944.
His mother was sent to the gas chambers. But he and his father were transported to the Ahlem slave labour camp in Hanover, Germany. By the time American troops liberated him in April 1945, Idek's father was also dead, probably murdered by being injected with petrol.
After the war, Tramiel spent two years in Germany, where he married a fellow concentration camp survivor, before leaving to start a new life in America in November 1947. He arrived in New York City with $10.
After Anglicising his name he joined the US Army, where he learned how to fix office equipment, a skill he used in 1953 -...