On a winter day in 1961, 31-year-old Anna Eichmayr crosses the Grosshesseloher bridge in Munich, she suddenly stops in the middle of the bridge, opens a manhole and plunges into the depths. The film traces the young woman's life in flashbacks. It goes back to 1945. A refugee train rolls westward from the German eastern territories. Anna is sitting in one of the cattle waggons with her mother and her young brother. She is unable to help another boy who tries to move to another place while the train is moving and holds onto her rucksack in the process. He slips and falls between the rails.