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Gabriele Keenaghan still remembers the day in April 1939 when she said goodbye to her grandmother at a Vienna railway station for a Kindertransport to Britain – tears were strictly forbidden.

“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.

“People had been told that there were to be no emotional scenes, they didn’t want any emotion shown by anyone. I tried not to cry. It was very difficult. My grandmother … she smiled.”

This week Keenaghan will mark her 100th year by returning to Vienna’s Westbahnhof, a place which changed, if not saved, her life, and there might be tears.

“I haven’t thought about how I’ll feel – I probably will feel emotional.”

Keenaghan, a retired head teacher, is speaking at her home in North Shields before what will be an epic trip to Vienna with several generations of her family.

The plan, hatched for her centenary, was nearly scuppered because Lufthansa cancelled routes from Newcastle. Fortunately, a good samaritan came to the rescue offering the use of a private jet, and the family admit they have been bowled over by the generosity.

Keenaghan is 99 but you would never guess.

She was awarded the British Empire medal for her services to Holocaust education, recounting what is a remarkable life story in the hope it might bring “kindness, tolerance and acceptance of diversity” in others.

Keenaghan, an only child, said she did not even know she was Jewish until after the Nazis invaded Austria.

Her mother, Hildegard, was a Catholic who died suddenly in 1935. Her father, Josef, was Jewish and manufactured heating stoves.

The young Gabriele was a boarder at a Catholic convent school run by nuns when the Nazis came and told pupils they would all be moving.

“The authorities came into the convent to tell us which schools we had to go to. We were all standing in the hall and names were called for this school, that school. At the end, I was the only one left standing. And I thought: ‘What’s happening to me?’”

She was told she would have to go to a Jewish school and a yellow star of David was sewn on to her coat. “I hadn’t realised that my father was a Jew. I didn’t know. I don’t think I even knew what being a Jew meant.”

It was bewildering and people treated her horribly, she said. “They called me a ‘dirty little Jew’ and I was a sensitive girl. It was upsetting.”

Keenaghan never saw her father again. He was deported to Łódź in Poland and was almost certainly murdered in an extermination camp.

Her grandmother, also called Gabriele, made arrangements for her granddaughter to be taken out of Austria on a Kindertransport, the scheme which brought about 10,000 Jewish children to Britain as refugees.

Alone and scared but also probably excited, she remembers, she left with 150 other children, taking the train to the Netherlands and then a boat to Harwich.

Keenaghan was a good student and quickly picked up the language. One of her first jobs was as a nanny to an affluent family in Woldingham, Surrey.

She has vivid memories of VE Day as all the village’s nannies – there were many – were given the day off and went to London to be part of the celebrations.

“It was really euphoric,” she said. “I’ve never experienced such excitement and joy. People were dancing in the street. They were climbing trees.

“We were in front of Buckingham Palace and out came the king and queen and the two princesses, Elizabeth and Margaret. Princess Elizabeth was the same age as me … she would also be 100 this year had she lived.”

Keenaghan went on to train as a teacher in the north-east and met her husband, Ken, and raised a family in Wallsend. She became a middle-school head teacher and clearly has fond memories of her career and the children and teachers who were part of it.

She has returned to Austria annually to see relatives, especially her grandmother, who died in 1974.

The one place she and her family have not been to is the station.

Keenaghan’s actual official birthday is in November, when Vienna would be far too cold. “I’m going to be like Queen Elizabeth. I’m going to have two birthdays,” she said.

There will be family members on the plane, including Keenaghan’s two daughters, Pat and Christine. Others will travel separately.

Both daughters have vague memories of their great-grandmother, although they were very young.

“The story goes that I used to call her Noddy Grandmother because I didn’t realise she couldn’t speak English,” said Christine. “I would speak to her all of the time and she nodded a lot.”

Keenaghan has spoken many times to children about her experiences. “I hope they have learned something from it,” she said. “But do we ever learn? Look at the world, look at the state it is in now.”