Gabriele Keenaghan’s Hundredth-Year Return to Vienna’s Westbahnhof

Retired head teacher Gabriele Keenaghan, who will turn 100 this year, is preparing a multigenerational trip from North Shields to Vienna’s Westbahnhof—the railway station where, in April 1939, she boarded a Kindertransport to Britain. The journey was almost cancelled after Lufthansa suspended routes from Newcastle, but a private-jet donor enabled the family to proceed. Keenaghan, 99 at the time of planning, will travel with her daughters Pat and Christine and other relatives, marking the centenary with a visit to the only site she has never returned to.

The Guardian

Keenaghan’s departure came after her grandmother arranged for her to leave Austria as part of the Kindertransport scheme that rescued roughly 10,000 Jewish children. She travelled with about 150 other children, first by train to the Netherlands and then by boat to Harwich. At the time, she was unaware of her Jewish heritage; her father Josef, a Jewish heating-stove manufacturer, was later deported to Lódz, Poland, and is presumed to have been murdered in an extermination camp. Keenaghan recalled the Nazis in black uniforms on the platform and the prohibition against showing emotion.

The Guardian

Settling in Britain, Keenaghan quickly learned English, worked as a nanny in Surrey, and later trained as a teacher in the north-east. She met her husband Ken, raised two daughters, and became a middle-school head teacher. She also recalls the euphoria of VE Day celebrations in London, describing the crowd’s dancing and the appearance of the king, queen and Princess Elizabeth.

The Guardian

Keenaghan’s granddaughter Christine remembers her great-grandmother’s limited English: “The story goes that I used to call her Noddy Grandmother because I didn’t realise she couldn’t speak English,” — Christine She adds that Keenaghan hopes her story teaches future generations, yet questions whether the world has truly learned from the past. The centenary trip therefore serves both as a personal pilgrimage and a reminder of the Kindertransport’s historic rescue effort.

The Guardian