In order to be reunited with Mahmood (Ören), a man she was promised to as a young girl, 20-year-old Shirin (Erten) leaves the life she had in a small village in Turkey in search of him.

Stefan Schröder is a trainee teacher for Latin and German. He has just moved into an apartment in an old, desolate house in the Berlin suburbs when he receives a letter from the school authorities: they have doubts about his loyalty to the constitution! From now on, Stefan feels persecuted, constantly watched and monitored in his apartment. Added to this is the fact that the actual, mysterious main tenant is away for an unforeseeable period of time and keeps one room locked. The suspicion that someone is going in and out of his apartment and that the people surrounding him are not who they claim to be becomes ever stronger. Stefan frantically searches for a motive.

Adapted from the book by Robert Muller and based on his own experiences, this film recreates the Germany of 1936, when a young boy is trying to conceal his Jewish blood. The film shows how the Nazi ideology was absorbed into the fabric of people's lives.