Lena Katz, who is German, and David Fish, who is American, are Jews who live in New York. When Lena's mother, who arrives from Germany, meets her at a hotel, she finds an almost-dead woman ...
When writer and psychoanalyst Lou Andreas-Salomé meets young german scholar Ernst Pfeiffer he helps her writing the story of her life and falls in love with her as many before.
Germany 1935. 16-year old Sanne is sent to live with her aunt in Frankfurt. She falls in love with her cousin Franz, and they plan to marry secretly, but her aunt learns of the plans, and denounces Sanne to the Gestapo.
A Greek father, estranged from his German wife, kidnaps his daughter from her busy career mother in Berlin, and brings her home to live with his family. An international custody battle follows.