At the beginning of January, Ireland mourned the death of the country’s oldest resident, Joseph Veselsky, who died at 107. He was a Holocaust survivor who fought the Nazis, a successful jeweler and a major figure in Irish table tennis, perhaps the sport’s most recognizable personality in the country.
Joe, as he was known in Ireland, was born Josef Weiss in 1918, the year Czechoslovakia was founded, in the city of Trnava, now in Slovakia. According to Holocaust Education Ireland, he played table tennis from childhood and excelled, recalling that the first competition he remembered was the Slovak primary schools championship at age 10. As he grew older, he rose to the top ranks in Czechoslovakia while working at a bank.
He was 20 when the Nazis invaded. He later said he saw his parents being forced into a cattle car, though he did not receive official confirmation until his 80s: his parents, along with his brother and sister-in-law, were murdered at Auschwitz. “In recent years he told us he thought about his parents and brother every day,” his grandson told The Irish Times. “He never really knew what happened.”
His father, Maximilian, had earlier emigrated to New York with two of his sisters but chose to return home and did not escape the tragedy. Before they were separated, Joe changed his surname from Weiss to Veselsky at his mother’s urging to avoid being identified as Jewish. During the war, he fled to the Carpathian Mountains and joined the Czech resistance fighting the Nazis.
In a past interview, he said: “All I wanted was to return to the bank, because I was happy there. In the mountains, before dangerous missions, they would give us a glass of vodka, but I never drank it. I traded it with the other men for half a loaf of bread, and I was always the fullest there.” He rarely spoke about the fighting and the horrors, in keeping with his reputation as an optimistic man who encouraged those around him.
After the war, Joe married and had two children. He described postwar Czechoslovakia as “chaos,” and ahead of the communist revolution, Veselsky, a socialist, faced harassment on suspicion of belonging to the wrong political camp while working as an aide to a government minister. “All your friends are gone,” his wife, Katerina, told him, and in 1948 the family fled via Hungary to Switzerland to start a new life.
He struggled to find steady work there and planned to emigrate to Australia, but one of his children fell ill and could not endure the long sea journey. A Czech friend suggested he move to Dublin, and in 1949 the family finally settled in Ireland, knowing little about the country.
Veselsky imported pearls from Japan and Swiss watches, quickly finding success by tapping market demand and his Swiss connections. But he never abandoned his childhood passion. Even before leaving Czechoslovakia, he had returned to table tennis, helping rebuild the national team and later serving as its captain. He told The University Times that on the way to one match, the team was stopped at the Yugoslav-Hungarian border and allowed to pass only after playing a tournament against Serbian officers.
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The sign at the entrance to the Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp
(Photo: Katarina Stoltz/Reuters)
In Ireland, he picked up where he left off. Local sports officials were impressed by the level he brought from a country where the standard was far higher, and Veselsky was appointed both captain and coach of the national team, roles he held for 20 years. His expertise made him a leading figure in Irish sport. Although Ireland is not a major force in table tennis, he helped advance the game and remained involved throughout his life, later serving as the association’s honorary president.
When he had grandchildren, he eagerly taught and coached them. His involvement extended beyond table tennis: in the 1970s he served for several years on the board of Shamrock Rovers, where his experience and knowledge were valued.
He continued to pursue new interests in old age. At 92, he became the oldest student at Trinity College Dublin, taking history courses and saying he especially enjoyed the course on World War II, from which he “learned a lot.” In 2016 he received an honorary degree, with the citation noting he “was a loyal citizen of his homeland and his adopted country, presenting an extraordinary story of courage and survival, and was an athlete of exceptional leadership.”
Business success was one way Veselsky integrated into Irish society, but he did so mainly through sport, where he earned admiration and affection. He may have represented Czechoslovakia in his youth, but it was what made him Irish, and he was widely honored until his death. “All my life I have been lucky,” he said several years ago, offering a glimpse of his distinctive outlook.