Holocaust survivor Josef Veselsky, who lived in hiding with the resistance in the Carpathian Mountains during World War II and later became Ireland’s oldest person, has died in Dublin at the age of 107, Irish media reported.
Veselsky was believed to be the oldest person in the country. His grandson, Nicholas Brown, described him as a figure “larger than life” — a kind and generous man who always made time to listen and engage with people from all walks of life.
Born Josef Weiss in October 1918 in Trnava, on the same day the Republic of Czechoslovakia was proclaimed, Veselsky grew up in a religious Jewish family. His father, Maximilian, had earlier emigrated to New York with two sisters before returning to Bratislava. Although raised religiously, Veselsky later described himself as an atheist.
As the Nazis began mass arrests of Jews during World War II, his mother, Berta, urged him to change his name to “something a bit more Slovak,” a decision that helped him survive. He narrowly avoided an encounter with Adolf Eichmann while meeting representatives of the Jewish community and eventually joined the Czech resistance in the Carpathian Mountains, where he lived in hiding until the end of the war.
His parents and older brother were murdered at Auschwitz — a loss he later said left an “indelible mark” on his life.
After the war, Veselsky served as secretary to a minister in the Czechoslovak government. When the communists came to power in 1948, he feared for his safety and decided to leave the country. Although he initially planned to emigrate to Australia, his daughter’s illness made the long sea journey impossible. On the advice of friends, Veselsky and his wife, Katharina, moved to Ireland in 1949, where they settled permanently.
Over a life shaped by the aftermath of two world wars, Veselsky built a successful career importing Swiss watches and later Japanese pearls. He was also deeply involved in sport, playing a central role in the development of table tennis in Ireland. He served for more than 20 years as captain of national table tennis teams in both Czechoslovakia and Ireland and was later named lifelong honorary president of the Irish Table Tennis Association. The Joe Veselsky Award was established in his honor to recognize achievements in Irish table tennis administration.
A gifted linguist, Veselsky spoke Czech, Slovak and German, and communicated in Hungarian with his wife.
Brown told Irish broadcaster RTÉ that his grandfather learned only late in life the full details of his family’s deportation to Auschwitz. Seeing the events recorded in writing for the first time deeply affected him.
“He was deeply disturbed at first to see it written down — when they were taken, where they were taken and when they were murdered,” Brown said. “He cried then, and my father had never seen him cry. For him, it was a kind of closure and relief, to know exactly what happened.”
Even in advanced age, Veselsky remained remarkably active. In 2010, at 91, he began taking external courses in history and humanities at Trinity College Dublin, becoming the oldest student in the university’s history. In 2016, Trinity awarded him an honorary master of arts degree, alongside figures including writer J.P. Donleavy, physicist Prof. Peter Higgs and then–U.S. Vice President Joe Biden.
In its citation, the college praised Veselsky as “a loyal citizen of both his homeland and his adopted country,” describing his life as “an extraordinary tale of courage and perseverance.”
Josef Veselsky is survived by his children, Peter and Kate, and leaves behind a legacy that continues to inspire the table tennis community in Ireland, Europe and beyond.
