Berlin, Germany, 1935. The Weisses, a Jewish family, celebrate son Karl's marriage to Inga Helms, a Christian girl. When Erik Dorf is unable to find work as a lawyer, wife Marta urges him to apply for a Nazi regime job. Erik Dorf warns Dr. Weiss he should leave Germany. Karl is arrested and sent to Buchenwald concentration camp, and Dr. Weiss is deported to Poland. Erik Dorf continues to advance in the Nazi hierarchy.

Inga is desperate to reunite with Karl, but her parents do not want to risk hiding her Jewish in-laws. Rudi runs away from their hiding place. Erik Dorf helps Heydrich plan and execute his Final Solution. Moses and Dr. Weiss are caught when the Nazis overrun Poland. Helena rescues Rudi from a patrol. Berta joins her husband in the Warsaw ghetto. Rudi and Helena escape to Russia.

Rudi and Helena escape from a long procession of Jews being marched into Babi Yar. They are eventually rescued from a hayloft by a group of Jewish partisans. Erik Dorf attends a top-level Nazi conference in which Heydrich gives orders of the final solution for all the Jews in Europe. Karl Weiss has been transferred to Theresienstadt concentration camp that the Germans use to display to the Red Cross officials and representatives of neutral countries that Jews are being treated kindly. Karl learns that his fellow artists in the camp are creating propaganda paintings by day while secretly drawing images of the brutal conditions of the camp by night.

Erik Dorf complains to the other SS leaders that the executions of the Jews are not being efficiently done. An order is placed by Erik for Zyklon B (a lethal gas) for use at Auschwitz and other camps. Inga asks Müller to denounce her and have her sent to Karl at Theresienstadt. Felscher sells four of the secret drawings done by him, Frey and Karl, which depict the brutal conditions at Theresienstadt, to a Czech gendarme, which the SS get a hold of. Felscher, Frey and Karl are called in for questioning and then tortured. Karl survives and is sent to Auschwitz.