Gretel's Story

"Gretel's Story" is the spellbinding account of a free-spirited young woman in a world where few dared to speak up. Living in Hamburg, Germany, Gretel Wachtel witnessed the disappearance of her best friend during Kristallnacht, the infamous night of atrocities against the Jewish population in 1938, and during the war she endured the constant bombing of her beloved city by the Allies, surviving a firestorm. An unguarded anti-Nazi comment resulted in her being forced to work in an ammunition factory, but she didn't lose her desire to fight the totalitarian regime. She married a resistance fighter, helped a priest to protect those hunted by the Gestapo, and hid her Jewish doctor in her home. She passed secrets to the resistance. Finally arrested in 1945 and taken to an internment camp, she was liberated as the British Army advanced towards Hamburg. Gretel Wachtel was an ordinary person thrust into extraordinary circumstances, one whose wartime experiences are nothing short of astonishing.