Gabriele Kinagan will return to the Vienna station from which she left for Britain in 1939
Gabriele Kinagan, 99, who left Nazi Austria at the age of 12 under the Kindertransport programme, plans to return to Vienna’s Westbahnhof station in the year of her 100th birthday. In April 1939, she said goodbye there to her grandmother before departing for the United Kingdom.
As The Guardian reports, Kinagan recalls Nazis in black uniforms on the platform and people being ordered not to make emotional scenes. She tried not to cry, while her grandmother smiled at her in farewell. Kinagan said she would probably feel strong emotions when returning to the station.
Persecution in Austria
Kinagan was the only child in her family. Her mother, Hildegard, a Catholic, died suddenly in 1935. Her father, Josef Weiss, was Jewish and manufactured heating stoves.
After the Nazi invasion of Austria, the girl was transferred from a Catholic convent school to a Jewish one, and a yellow Star of David was sewn onto her coat. Kinagan said she had previously not been aware of her Jewish background and did not know what it meant to be Jewish. According to her, she was subsequently insulted because of her background.
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Kinagan’s father was deported to Łódź, Poland, and she never saw him again. According to the publication, he was almost certainly killed in a death camp.
Journey to the United Kingdom
Her grandmother, also named Gabriele, arranged her granddaughter’s departure from Austria. Kinagan travelled with about 150 other children by train to the Netherlands and then by ship to Harwich. The Kindertransport programme enabled about 10,000 Jewish children to reach the United Kingdom as refugees.
Kinagan later received teacher training in northeast England, started a family in Wallsend and became the head of a middle school. She repeatedly told schoolchildren about her experience, hoping to promote kindness, tolerance and acceptance of diversity.
Kinagan travelled to Austria every year to see relatives, including her grandmother, who died in 1974. However, she and her family have not visited Westbahnhof station. Several generations of her family, including her daughters Pat and Christine, will accompany her on the trip. Kinagan’s official birthday falls in November, so it was decided to make the trip earlier.
