St. Georgen had a secret...

In a small village in northern Austria, white flakes fell from the sky. The month was July. It wasn't snow that tumbled down, but ash.

For those familiar with World War II history, concentration camps such as Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen are well discussed. But there are also many lesser-known camps. One of them is Gusen.

Gusen was a sub-camp of the larger Mauthausen complex. The average survival period of inmates was several weeks. In some cases, it was only a few days.

As early as 1940, prisoners started arriving at the small train station in the town center. A full two years before the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the citizens of St. Georgen were already experiencing the horrors of war. And by January 1941, the Mauthausen-Gusen camps became the only 'Category I' camps in Third Reich history, meaning "camp of no return."

The camps expanded and by February 1945, 25,000 people were incarcerated inside Gusen. It was then that Himmler and Pohl decided the horror could not be discovered. Their plan was to blow up Gusen's armament tunnels (Bergkristall) with the inmates and the local population of St. Georgen inside. The Nazis' goal was to destroy potential witnesses.

Hearing this, Mr. Louis Haefliger (delegate of the International Committee of the Red Cross) risked his life on May 5, 1945 to lead in US troops to St. Gerogen, preventing this final catastrophe. The first US GIs at the camp were the 41st Recon Squadron, 11th Armored Division, Patton's 3rd Army.

"Heartbreaking. Gut wrenching. From Dust and Ashes stuns the senses and challenges readers' emotions. Woven throughout the story is a glimpse of the truth - God didn't die during the Holocaust."

- Kim Peterson,
CBA Marketplace

"As a veteran of the 11th Armored Division during the liberation of Mauthausen and Gusen concentration camps, I am very impressed with the studied details Tricia Goyer, an author of a later generation, has gathered and interwoven with the fiction story From Dust and Ashes. I heartily recommend this wonderful book."

-Ross Snowdon,
U.S. Army Veteran,
11th Armored Division

"What a story! It sweeps us back to a time when the world swore 'Never again' and gives us raw hope to walk away with. From Dust and Ashes is too good to be a first novel."

- Anne de Graaf,
International Bestselling Author,
Christy Award Winner