And it was a breeze – until we reached Vienna, where the weight of history and fatherhood suddenly hit me.
My grandmother Thilde – along with her elder sister Eva and brother Herbert – fled to England as an eight-year-old.
Her father was interned by the Nazis almost immediately after they crossed the border from Germany and she never got to say goodbye to him. Like all Jewish men, he was arrested and interned by the Nazis immediately after their annexation of Austria.
My great-grandmother spent days queueing to get her kids places on the Kindertransport. As only children were accepted, she was forced to say goodbye to them and send them off to a country where they didn’t speak the language.
Along with 65,000 other Austrian Jews, my great-grandparents, Joseph and Blanka, were eventually murdered at Auschwitz.
Now, I’m as cynical as the next person but on arrival, we struggled to find the building in question. That was, until we came across a Volkswagen Fox with a Union Jack bumper sticker. Thilde’s married name was Fox and, despite leaving Britain for Israel in 1953, her patriotism for the UK would put the natives to shame. An English teacher, she was as much a fan of Chaucer as she was an expert in Royal Family gossip (her foster family in Hull would regularly send her packages of women’s magazines so she could keep up to date with what was really going on in Blighty). As we were staring at the car with my memories flooding back, I suddenly noticed we were, oddly, very close to 14b Beatrixgasse.
The author outside 14b Beatrixgasse[Missing Credit]
Then we saw the plaque. To have a better look, I placed my son on the pavement and bent down to read the inscription. He started to crawl over the bronze, running his fingers over the engraved names and dates – a moment of living history that brought a lump to my throat. Despite their best efforts, my son is now the fourth generation of this family that the Nazis failed to eradicate. And in my very biased view, there is no more perfect a testament to their failure.
The author's son with a plaque commemorating his murdered relatives in Vienna[Missing Credit]
Just before we turned to leave, a couple of women exited the building and were keen to hear about the family linked to the plaque that they say is religiously cleaned once a year. Apparently, certain residents are not too happy about being reminded about the flat in the block’s miserable history – something these women dismissed with a roll of the eyes.
I needed a drink and so, after a stop at the Leopold Museum for my wife to catch a glimpse of work by her favourite artist (Egon Schiele), we drank to Thilde, Herbert, Eva, Blanca and Joseph with ice-cold beers in Judenplatz – opposite the Israeli flag-adorned Jewish Museum and memorial to the country’s murdered Jews.
From left: Eva, Thilde and Herbert (z"l) Burstyn, Vienna, c1937 (Image: Tamar Fox)[Missing Credit]
A day later, we pulled into Budapest – the final stop on our tour. And weirdly enough, it was there that I was overtaken by emotion. From everything our mates have told us, the Hungarian capital is a cheap boozy weekend destination, so I was expecting stag dos and goulash galore. While that might be true, I was astonished to find that, unlike in so many cities in Europe and beyond, there’s a Jewish quarter that actually has Jews in it.
Not only that, but packed Israeli restaurants that do not feel the need to hide their identity (I see you, “eastern Mediterranean”) and without crusty pro-Palestine protesters outside.
The author with his son in Vienna[Missing Credit]
How is it that in the city centre an October 7 memorial – with tributes to fallen hostages and IDF soldiers and an Israeli flag – can stand without any sort of vandalism when, despite the repeated proclamations about London’s openness, tolerance and diversity, I cannot imagine a similar one lasting two seconds in our capital?
It was pleasing to see things so different, but sad that we could not imagine the same for ourselves back home.
Despite this and the delicious food, cheap booze and scenic cityscape, there is a sketchy side to Budapest.
The sight of a woman honking on a crack pipe outside a children’s playground that we had hoped to go to put an end to any myth of Hungary being some child-centric utopia.
Moreover, with elections looming, it was uncomfortable to see so many attack ads aimed at Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Overall, though, our Interrailing adventure was truly epic in every sense.
We created memories that we’ll treasure as a family for eternity: a canal boat tour of Amsterdam, steins of Weissbier in Munich’s English Garden, spotting locations from The Sound of Music in Salzberg and falling in love with (and joking about seeking asylum in) picture-perfect Lake Bled, with its stunning scenery and moreish local wines.
When we told friends that we were going on an epic rail adventure with a baby, some thought we were out of our minds.
But our trip showed us that not only is it possible, we would now actively choose train over plane every time.
I hope Aubrey will one day return to Vienna, and that we have created a tradition of celebrating our family history of survival with beers in Judenplatz.
