After her mother’s death, the actress Magdalena Behsler, called Lena, turns her back on the theater and returns to her small hometown. She rents a room from a Julius Dahlmann, a childhood friend of her mother’s. As a child, Dahlmann lived in Poland until 1944, in Auschwitz, there, “were it all began”, as Lena’s mother always said. Lena’s boyfriend Ludwig is waiting for her at home and asks her to marry him, but she is not ready to commit. She decides to travel to Poland, to find answers to the questions she was never able to ask her mother.

When he hears about Lena’s plans, Dahlmann also travels to Oswiecim. He finds a room with a Catholic priest named Richard Franzen. Dahlmann only wants to recognize the Polish town where he lived as a child, but he avoids his traumatic experiences and his feelings of guilt that have grown over the years. Lena also meets Richard Franzen. He is quickly fascinated by Lena’s unconventional handling of German history, as well as her by erotic aura.

For Lena and Dahlmann, the trip through unknown Polish landscapes becomes a journey into the past. And Richard’s feelings for Lena lead him to doubt more and more the purpose of celibacy …