Overview

Eighteen-year-old Greta Kolbe would like nothing better than to enjoy skiing, ice skating, and going to concerts with friends, attending the University of Vienna in the fall, and looking forward to romance. But she lives in Vienna in 1938, and Hitler's army has just taken over Austria. Vienna on Fire brings to startling life the nightmarish reality of what Austrian Jews faced when their lives were completely undone by the Nazis that, months, weeks, even days before, most Austrians thought was unthinkable.To survive, Greta must leave everything she knows behind, leave her mother, father, grandmother and friends to their own unknown fate. Her parents have sacrificed everything to see that she gets transport on a ship to America. The problem is, and there are many of them on her perilous journey to a port in The Netherland, she is wanted by the Gestapo for her political activities and is relentlessly pursued by a vindictive ex-boyfriend-turned Nazi.Greta has been raised a secular Jew who has attended Catholic schools and whose family celebrated Christmas. Now, thanks to the 1935 Nuremburg Laws, she is simply a Jew, a criminal on the run. Can she outwit her pursuers and make it to the steamer before they arrest and send her to Dachau concentration camp? Vienna on Fire is a fast-paced Olympian sprint mined with dangers every mile of the way. Evil is palpable. Trust a thing of the past. Greta's life has become a life-or-death struggle where the next instant can bring salvation or calamity. But Greta's friends, along with her ingenuity, courage, and will to survive are her only hope to reach America.