Toward the end of World War II, Kurt Marenke, a farm boy, is separated from his family while fleeing East Prussia. It is not until two years later that he is reunited with his mother and his sister Ella in the small village of Kudenow in Schleswig-Holstein. Their father is dead, and their brother Bruno is missing in Russia. The Marenkes live in the chicken coop of the large-scale farmer Fiete Kock. Other refugees live crammed together in the barn.