Donna Kremer's gripping debut sheds light on the extraordinary and fully human struggle of one community during the world's most shattering era.
Beginning with the first German settlers who tame the once desolate Danube Valley and continuing through the early years of World War II, the tale of one town adds a human dimension to the account of a troubled region.
Known as Danube-Swabian—Germans who had been invited by the Austro-Hungarian government to settle the basin of the Danube River—they are just one minority among the many ethnic Slavs of Eastern Europe.
Arriving in Croatia in the spring of 1903, the Leissners begin their tale of the village Krndija. Their lives soon become entwined with those of the Hendricks, the Webers and the Kiellers.
From the dark, exotic-looking Katharina, so bitter and driven; to the tall and gentle Georg; to a disillusioned and dark-eyed Rosalia who has been shaped by her mother's anger, to the boisterous and self-assured Paul, their seemingly simple, yet multifaceted relationships are portrayed through everyday occurrences and the extraordinary sequence of events affecting their times.
When World War II alters history, their will to survive is the catalyst by which they must endure their last days in Krndija before they escape from Tito's Partisans, the resistance group poised to take over Yugoslavia.
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