Count­ing on Amer­i­ca is based on Kurt Rein­er’s auto­bi­og­ra­phy, high­light­ing how he and his wife, Hen­nie, man­aged to flee Vien­na, Aus­tria fol­low­ing the March 12, 1938 Anschluss (Ger­man annex­a­tion of Aus­tria). Recur­rent stops at Dachau and a forced-labor farm, fol­lowed by intern­ment in a French prison camp, delay the escape of the fugi­tive two­some. The sto­ry cap­tures the obsta­cles that Jew­ish refugees faced attempt­ing to emi­grate out of Europe dur­ing the Holo­caust. Although Kurt Rein­er died in 1985, his expe­ri­ence is cap­tured and kept alive in Kurt’s first-per­son voice by his co-author son, Gary Rein­er. The account is enhanced by the incor­po­ra­tion of dozens of orig­i­nal source doc­u­ments that cor­rob­o­rate the descrip­tion of events.

Count­ing on Amer­i­ca is a true sto­ry that pro­vides pro­found evi­dence that a com­bi­na­tion of luck, love, per­se­ver­ance, and divine inter­ven­tion was the req­ui­site for­mu­la for sur­vival dur­ing the Holo­caust. The cou­ple’s stead­fast com­mit­ment to reach the shores of the Unit­ed States is a pow­er­ful endorse­ment of Amer­i­ca’s impor­tance to refugees flee­ing despot nations.