When Ruth's husband dies in New York, in 2000, she imposes strict Jewish mourning, which puzzles her children. A stranger comes to the house - Ruth's cousin - with a picture of Ruth, age 8, in Berlin, with a woman the cousin says helped Ruth escape. Hannah, Ruth's daughter engaged to a gentile, goes to Berlin to find the woman, Lena Fisher, now 90. Posing as a journalist investigating intermarriage, Hannah interviews Lena who tells the story of a week in 1943 when the Jewish husbands of Aryan women were detained in a building on Rosenstrasse. The women gather daily for word of their husbands. The film goes back and forth to tell Ruth and Lena's story. How will it affect Hannah?

The former waiter Ernst Held believes himself to be called higher and seeks self-realization as a poet. When he recites poems to his wife's beautician in an ambiguous situation, his wife puts him out the door. Completely destitute, the thwarted poet must therefore return to the lowlands of life and become the head in the Munich pub "Goldener Löffel".

Leni Gruyetin, a resident of Nazi Germany, lives a tumultuous life as she bears witness to the fascist regime of the Nazis.

A terrorist drives a car to Hamburg's Rathausmarkt and unloads an unknown device that he claims can cause radioactive contamination. A special unit tries to subdue the man, but this reveals that the only way to prevent the explosion is to constantly readjust a transmitter, so they have to let him go.

Germany 1939. Hans and Lene marry the day before the war breaks out, and Hans is sent to the Eastern front. During a bombing raid their daughter Anna is born. The house is destroyed and Lene and Anna moves in with relatives in Berlin. Hans survives the war but he is not the same person as in 1939, and he and Lene find it difficult to live together again.

Andrea collects loyalty points at a gas station supermarket and seems to have a perfect life. Her husband Christoph is a successful lawyer and loving father of two wonderful children. Everything seems to be going well in their paid-off row house. Then Andrea sees her husband in a passionate embrace with an unknown beauty. Her alarm bells start ringing: Is Christoph having an affair?

The TV documentation reconstructs the incidents between May and November 1989 from the point of view of the Politburo of the GDR (German Democratic Republic). The incidents include the fraud of local elections, the opening of Hungary's borders towards Austria, the ensuing tide of East German refugees to Hungary and Czechoslovakia for transfer to West Germany, the pompous ceremonies at GDR's 40th anniversary, the inept transactions the Politburo took to salvage the situation, the resulting dismissal of their leader Erich Honecker, the international press conference in East Berlin on 9th November 1989, at which Politburo member Günther Schabowski erroneously announced the immediate opening of the 'Iron Curtain', which finally led to the collapse of socialism in the GDR and the other East Bloc countries.

Sisters Maria and Anna live together. Maria is a most proficient executive secretary, encouraging Anna to finish her studies and start a career. Anna broods, threatens to quit university, takes pills, and keeps a diary. When Maria's relationship with Maurice, the son of her boss, starts to lead to love, Anna takes a selfish and drastic step that plummets Maria into solitude. No longer able to connect with Maurice, Maria does establish a relationship with Miriam, a typist at her office who becomes a surrogate younger sister. But Maria is intrusive as well as helpful. Can this or any relationship work out for this talented woman whose past seems to choke her soul?