Georgina was born in Vienna at the end of 1927, at a time when the city had lost its position as the center of an empire and was struggling to find a new identity. When the Nazis entered Vienna in 1938, the people cheered, imagining the return of the greatness they felt they deserved. However, as a Jewish girl, Georgina had no reason to celebrate. Within a few days, she was told to sit at the back of her classroom, while several of her friends told her that their parents had forbidden them to speak to her. She saw anti-Semitic slogans written on the windows of Jewish shops, as well as Orthodox Jews being harassed on the streets. On one occasion, she saw a crowd gather around some Jews who were forced to lick spit from the pavement. "The people around were laughing and encouraging them. It was terrible."

Georgina's family had other reasons to feel anxious about the arrival of the Nazis: her father was a communist soldier and was already under government surveillance. Judging that the new environment was too dangerous, he disappeared, going to Prague. Two months later, Georgina and her mother followed him. Under the pretense of going for a picnic in the countryside, they packed their few belongings and took a train to the border, where a man with a "strange appearance" secretly helped them cross into Czechoslovakia.