‘I’ll probably feel emotional’: Kindertransport centenarian prepares to revisit site of family separation
North Shields’ Gabriele Keenaghan was 12 when she was evacuated from Nazi Austria in 1939. She remembers the shock of leaving her family at Westbahnhof station
TL;DR
- Gabriele Keenaghan, a Kindertransport survivor, is returning to Vienna's Westbahnhof station for her 100th birthday.
- She was sent to Britain in 1939 at age 12, leaving her grandmother behind under strict orders not to show emotion.
- Keenaghan discovered she was Jewish after the Nazi invasion of Austria and faced discrimination.
- Her father was deported and likely murdered in an extermination camp.
- The Kindertransport scheme brought approximately 10,000 Jewish children to Britain.
- Keenaghan became a retired head teacher and has received the British Empire medal for her work in Holocaust education.
- She will be accompanied by several generations of her family for the trip.