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1930s: An English Girl studies music in the stunning city of Vienna but the war drums are ever near..
The English Girl
What you need to know before your trail
Stella Whittaker is only seventeen when she is offered the chance to study at the Academy of Music in Vienna. This is a dream come true for her and a remarkable achievement for a young girl especially in the 1930s. Rainer and Marthe Kraus, family friends offer her a place to live.
Stella soon falls in love with the elegant beauty of the city and its warm welcome. She also falls in love with a young Jewish Doctor Harri Reznik.
But as the threat of war casts a dark shadow over Europe, Stella soon discovers that both where she lives, the city and those she knows around her, that suddenly the welcome to some is not as warm.
Travel Guide
Vienna
The city of music, architecture and gothic grandeur. A city where Stella is welcomed and admired for her talent. Vienna before and after the war is two different cities. As soon as she arrives, Marthe talks of the sights and the highlights of the city she should see such as the cultural, art musuems and the parks. Oh the glorious parks. TA sunday in Vienna is a special time for a walk and there’s a schoenbrunn castle is a landmark to visit too.
The music at The Music Academy
She is to study at the Academy of Music, and her life to now has been dominated by music and learning music which have resulted in a rather sheltered life
The art gallery
It’s in this art gallery where Stella meets the man who will change her life. It’s quite the place and there is some stunning art to be found in between its walls
Vienna under the Nazis
1937 – The doom and gloom of war is encroaching over the entire city.
This is a unique view of Vienna and how corruption is able to spread so quietly and so deadly. Through Stella’s naive eyes we see the changes of how Hitler was turning everyone against the Jews. Interestingly it’s at this point when the sky becomes as dark as a bruise and the city is described as being built on the remains of the dead for all the cemeteries and caverns which exist underground. The Zentral Freidhof where Stella goes to is one of them.
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