Berlin, Germany, 1935. The Weisses, a Jewish family, celebrate son Karl's marriage to Inga Helms, a Christian girl. When Erik Dorf is unable to find work as a lawyer, wife Marta urges him to apply for a Nazi regime job. Erik Dorf warns Dr. Weiss he should leave Germany. Karl is arrested and sent to Buchenwald concentration camp, and Dr. Weiss is deported to Poland. Erik Dorf continues to advance in the Nazi hierarchy.

Rudi and Helena escape from a long procession of Jews being marched into Babi Yar. They are eventually rescued from a hayloft by a group of Jewish partisans. Erik Dorf attends a top-level Nazi conference in which Heydrich gives orders of the final solution for all the Jews in Europe. Karl Weiss has been transferred to Theresienstadt concentration camp that the Germans use to display to the Red Cross officials and representatives of neutral countries that Jews are being treated kindly. Karl learns that his fellow artists in the camp are creating propaganda paintings by day while secretly drawing images of the brutal conditions of the camp by night.