Hella Pick

“[S]he once tripped over and fell, literally, into the arms of President Kennedy. In Washington, she was frequently mistaken for Henry Kissinger's wife. On one occasion after her plane, which was also carrying President Nixon, nearly crashed on the way to Minsk, an absent-minded subeditor bylined her Hella Pinsk.”

“The journey of my life has been the constant search for escape from the feelings of insecurity as a refugee, which has never gone away.”

“More than 64,000 Austrian Jews perished in the Holocaust. The fortunate were able to emigrate, but only after all their possessions had been seized. Several thousand Jewish children were saved and put onto the Kindertransport to Britain.”

“Many refugees who fled Austria before or during the Second World War still refuse to set foot there. But I, a Kindertransport survivor, have no compunction about visiting my native country and cannot recall being made to feel uncomfortable there.”

“When I started work, women who were doing any kind of political foreign affairs reporting were really very, very thin on the ground. You could really name them all.”

“[Willy Brandt] said: "Come back to my hotel room and we can talk." I went back and we sat down and he asked about my background and we talked and we talked and we talked. I didn't get out until three in the morning and everyone on the Guardian thought: "She must have gone to bed with him."Well, she didn't go to bed with him but she became completely reconciled to Germany because she had got to know Willy Brandt.”