Summer 1943, the German security police are inspecting occupied East Poland. Romek (17) is a stoker on a shunting locomotive and dreams of working as a train driver on the Warsaw line. He wants to win 16-year-old Franka’s heart, a farmer’s beautiful daughter who works as a kitchen assistant at the German Gendarmerieposten. There she gets to know the young German Guido (17) who has been transferred to the village for listening to degenerate music. With his comrades, his job is to secure the train line, tracking down refugees and partisans.

The love of jazz brings the three of them together. Guido falls in love with Franka and, to Romek’s surprise, she reciprocates the German’s feeelings. The front seems far, far away, and the summer so very close. On his way to work along the trainline, Romek discovers the injured Jewish girl Bunia (16). He decides to help her. The four encounter their first love, free themselves for a moment from their harsh reality, and put themselves in danger. Their desire for normality and intimate relationships in connection with the horrors of war has no future and leads to a series of escalating tragedies – until the moment when each of them has to make a decision for themselves.