Eleven-year-old Julie Braun resides in the verdant mountain pastures of Austria's Southern Tyrol. After Italian soldiers kill her parents, she is sent to Vienna to stay with her relatives, the Clementes. She forms a friendship with cousins Johan and Tanya but struggles to adapt to life with Uncle Karl and Aunt Klara. As Austria descends into World War I, Karl loses his position at a glass factory, forcing Julie's new family into a life of hardship.