On the way to summer camp, eleven-year-old Lena develops a crush on Wolfgang, but Antonia is interested in him too. Although Lena and Wolfgang grow closer to each other, camp director Eichler disapproves of their relationship and tries to split them up by assigning them to different groups. The conflicts escalate until one night, during a disco event, Lena suddenly runs away.

In 1950s Berlin, eleven-year-old Susanne spends her time alternately in eastern Pankow with her mother and sister and in western Zehlendorf, where her wealthy grandmother enables the piano student to attend a music school. What she sees as a well-established everyday life comes to an end when her father Emil returns traumatized from captivity as a prisoner of war and begins to reorganize the family's life.