After his father is murdered by the Nazis in 1938, a young Viennese Jew named Ferry Tobler (Johannes Silber-Schneider) flees to Prague, where he joins forces with another expatriate (Armin Mueller-Stahl) and a sympathetic Czech relief worker. Together with other Jewish refugees, the three make their way to Paris, and, after spending time in a French prison camp, eventually escape to Marseille, from where they hope to sail to a safe port.