 Peter de Jonge was born in Stamford, Connecticut, and except for three years in Switzerland as a child, grew up there.As a teenager, he was a highly ranked tennis player and competed in the National Juniors in Kalamazoo, Michigan.His father, Alfred de Jonge, was born in Frankfurt, Germany, where he escaped the Holocaust in 1937, then returned eight years later with the U.S. Army to help defeat the German forces.