Kindertransport Survivor, 100, to Revisit Vienna Station
- Gabriele Keenaghan, a 100-year-old from North Shields, is preparing to revisit Vienna's Westbahnhof station, where she was separated from her family in April 1939.
- Keenaghan was 12 when she boarded a Kindertransport to Britain, recalling Nazis in black uniforms on the platform and a farewell at which tears were strictly forbidden.
- Anticipating the return, Keenaghan said she will 'probably feel emotional' at the site that marked the end of her childhood in Nazi-occupied Austria.
A centenarian Kindertransport survivor from North Shields is preparing to return to Vienna's Westbahnhof station, where she said goodbye to her grandmother in April 1939 before boarding a train that carried her to safety in Britain.
A farewell under Nazi watch
Gabriele Keenaghan was 12 years old when she left Nazi-occupied Austria as part of the Kindertransport, the operation that brought Jewish children to Britain in the months before the Second World War. She recalls the morning of her departure with striking clarity. "I was apprehensive and I was worried because Nazis in black uniforms were on the platform," she said. "I was only 12 years old so I think they were frightening … terrifying."
Tears, she has recalled, were strictly forbidden at the moment of parting from her grandmother on the platform.
Returning after more than eight decades
Now 100 years old, Keenaghan is set to revisit the station where her family was separated. She has acknowledged the emotional weight of what lies ahead. "I'll probably feel emotional," she said — a quietly composed remark from a woman whose composure at the age of 12 had been imposed by fear rather than chosen freely.
