Jack Kessler • Feed
avatar
Jack Kessler @jackkessler.bsky.social

At the age of nine, she boarded a train in Vienna bound for London, among the first of 10,000 Jewish refugee children to escape Nazi-occupied Europe on a Kindertransport. She was so young. Her father, Karl, had handed her four postcards, one to post at each stop — Munich, Aachen, Ostend and London — so that he could track her progress. Terrified and homesick, she filled them all out in Munich and posted them back. It was only some days later that Karl learned his daughter had made it to safety. She was, in so many ways, one of the lucky ones. Something she never allowed herself to forget. To live, when two out of every three European Jews were dead by 1945. To be reunited with her father. To obtain British citizenship. To study at the LSE, where she met Willie Kessler — by chance a fellow Jewish Austrian refugee — to whom she would be married for 62 years. To have four sons, each named after kings of England.
sep 1, 2025, 8:33 am • 2 0

Replies

avatar
Jack Kessler @jackkessler.bsky.social

Aged 16, and considered an 'enemy alien'.

Joanna Kessler
sep 1, 2025, 8:37 am • 6 1 • view
avatar
Stuart Rubenstein @stuartrubenstein.bsky.social

All lovely to read. Wish you long life. (Old and close friend of your cousin David B).

sep 1, 2025, 8:53 am • 0 0 • view
avatar
Jack Kessler @jackkessler.bsky.social

She was so many things at once. A helper, a doer and a voracious reader of biographies. She was resolute and kind, a devoted wife, doting mother, cherished friend, a lover of the arts and of kindness. But to just 11 people, she was simply ‘Grandma’. And I got to be one of them.

Grandma and me
sep 1, 2025, 8:42 am • 8 0 • view
avatar
James Austin @jamesdaustin.bsky.social

A remarkable life (and lovely piece) - and I'm very sorry for your loss.

sep 1, 2025, 8:52 am • 1 0 • view
avatar
Jack Kessler @jackkessler.bsky.social

Thanks, James. That means a lot.

sep 1, 2025, 9:08 am • 0 0 • view