Exhibition - Flipbook - Seite 8
The Pioneers /3
Alix Roth (1916 Vienna–1987 Village Aigues
Vertes, Geneva) was the younger sister of Peter.
She met Karl König as a patient and then became a member of his youth group. Alix learned
photography in the studio of Trude Fleischmann and was very connected to cultural life
of Vienna. In October 1938 she left Austria
after it had been annexed to Germany and
waited in a hotel in Zagreb hoping for a path
of emigration. In her diary she wrote: 14 days
ago I arduously made it across the border,
kaput, exhausted, empty and confused. But I
recovered quickly. It was like coming out of a
long tunnel, and it seems to me that I start to
learn and see everything anew, learn to
breath and live again. It’s slow but it works.
With Tilla König, Alix was instrumental in the
nurses‘training in Camphill which was very
important to Karl König. She accompanied
Karl König on most of his later journeys and
moved with him to Brachenreuthe 1964 to
assist in developing the middle European
Camphill region. After König‘s death she
spent the last phase of her life in the Camphill Village Aigues Vertes near Geneva.
Peter Roth (1914 Vienna–1997 St. Albans)
studied medicine at the University of Vienna.
In June 1938 he left Vienna with Ann Nederhoed, later Anke Weihs, who was not of Jewish
origin. They married in London in August 1938.
They earned their living by taxi driving and
translating medical books. Together with Karl
König and his father, Emil Roth, on 2 January
1939, Peter was part of the group that made
the first visit to Kirkton House which had
been offered to them by the Haughton Family,
friends of Ita Wegman.
Peter became a priest of the Christian Community and in 1945 already planned with Karl
König to create a Village Community where
adults with varying disabilities and abilities
would live and work together in connection
with religious and cultural striving. This only
came about in 1954 with the first «Camphill
Village» in Botton, England, starting the
«Village Impulse» within the Camphill
Movement which is still showing its effects
internationally.
Anke Weihs, born Ann Nederhoed,
(1914 Melbourne, Australia–1987 Camphill)
had been a patient of Dr. König in Vienna.
She was a professional dancer and had grown
up in Japan, Hawaii, USA and Holland. She
was the only one in the initial group to have
mastered the English language. She lived for
a time in Italy and Hungary, trained in Berlin
and Vienna where she danced with Grete
Wiesenthal. Anke did not come from a Jewish
family but was close to Peter Roth whom she
married on arrival in London, 1938. Apart from
continuing her artistic work in Camphill – not
only dancing but also acting – she was an
accomplished speaker, writer and translator
who could enthuse younger people for their
work and for higher ideals. Anke edited the
Camphill journal «The Cresset» from 1954
until the last issue 1972. She was an enthusiastic householder and educator and was
instrumental in the development of new
social initiatives around Scotland.