Vera Konig

* 1942

  • „Teaching sports was boring. It´s not intelectually challenging enough for me. But I love it. I mean I skied, I ran, I ran marathones, I swam competitively in College, I am an avid tennis player, I played in tournaments up until Covid started. I´ll get back to it now. I love the competition, that´s my mother, more than my father. I even competed a little bit in horseback riding then, jumping. I was too busy then I had work, you know. I couldn´t really develop that. I started to be really interested in competitive tennis, in tennis competition in my 50s.“

  • „My father was the manager of the farm. We lived in a small house they provided with a party line telephone and I went to a one room schoolhouse. There were twelve grades in one room and the teacher´s name was Mrs Peel. That was one of the documents I sent you. She was ..She had a daughter who had Polio. She was, I guess, one of the best teachers. I loved her. To this day I remember her. I can see her face, I can see the school („And her name was Mrs Peel?“) Pí í í el. It was great, you know. I was in the first grade. Don´t forget I didn´t have English for very long, I had mostly Czech. But I was a good student, I was always a good student. My memories of Nova Scotia? My mother would send me down to one of the fields where there were peas to be picked and I would go down with my basket, eat half of the peas first and then pick the other half.“

  • „As I said my father was very scared about talking of being Jewish until..I´m gonna tell you this right now but you …When we moved to Montreal, there was a Czech community there and we lived next door to a Czech family in the apartment. They were Czechs, Jews, but they sent their children to a Unitarian Sunday School. So, my parents decided that I should go to the Unitarian Sunday School. I had to put on a dress one Sunday, and I didn´t wanna wear a dress, but I went one Sunday and then the following Sunday I put myself in a corner and I said that I´m not going. And that was it. My parents, you know, they were amazing. It was always, and I have another story when I was later at College. ‚OK. If you don´t wanna do it, you don´t have to‘. Never forcing something on me, I never felt that I had to do something because to please them.“

  • Celé nahrávky
  • 1

    Praha, 12.05.2022

    (audio)
    délka: 02:06:43
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Stories of 20th Century
  • 2

    Praha, 12.05.2022

    (audio)
    délka: 02:06:43
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Stories of 20th Century
Celé nahrávky jsou k dispozici pouze pro přihlášené uživatele.

In our family religion wasn´t a big deal

Vera, period photograph from 1969
Vera, period photograph from 1969
zdroj: witness archive

Vera Konig was born 1st May 1942 in Ambato, Ecuador. Her parents, Victor and Hana, managed to leave Czechoslovakia in time: in 1938 they were sent with a group of agricultural experts to Ecuador to help improve local agriculture. During the WWII a large number of family members, those whocould not leave in time were murdered in concentration camps. In 1947 the Konigs decided to return to Czechoslovakia but a year later due to the Communist coup they emigrated again, this time to Canada. At first they lived in Montreal, a year later they moved to the province of Nova Scotia and in 1950 to New York where Vera has been living ever since. Vera has studied Physical Education at Queen´s College, has received an Education Degree from New York University and completed Social Work and Analysis studies at the Psychoanalytic Institute. The Konigs have always been a sportive family, Vera has been taking part in tennis tournaments even today. Since 1963 the Konigs with their two daughters Vera and Katja have been visiting their relatives in the Czech Republic. Vera, after the parents passed away (Victor in 2005, Hana in 2008), has still been joining the family reunions and says she feels like at home here.