In the fall of 1942, A.F. van Ravesteijn, along with thousands of other nineteen-year-olds, is sent to Nazi-Germany to work. He is meant to go to Hamburg, but because of a bombing, he doesn’t get further than Recklinghausen, and is eventually put to work at a forced labour camp in Buer. In the kitchen of the camp he meets the German girl Lotte. Her father gets him a paid job; he is to take note of the miners going underground. His skills are soon noticed, and he is gradually given more responsibilities.
Between all the bombing and misery, there is one person he can always depend on: Lotte. They become engaged. But then Lotte is evacuated and Van Ravesteijn meets Anneliese. Again he has to ask himself; is it a good idea, morally, to be in a relationship with a German girl when their countries are at war? All the while, the inequality, fear of Allied bombings, and famine increase. Van Ravesteijn tries to help where he can. But who can he trust? And who is he putting in grave danger? A unique insight into peoples’ everyday lives at the ‘homefront‘ in Nazi-Germany during the last and most grim month of WW II.