On a West German Autobahn, Robert plummets from a bridge and is hospitalized. As he recovers, he flashes back to a Bulgarian holiday where he met Jutta and her uncle Lothar, who’d ordered a West German passport to smuggle her out of the DDR. Back home, Robert and Jutta marry and have a daughter, Anna, but Jutta still yearns for the West. Lothar arranges their escape: Robert, Jutta, and Anna hide in a car trunk, but delays doom Anna. At the border, a grief-stricken Jutta blames Robert; distraught, he leaps from the bridge, surviving to face his guilt. A film banned in the GDR.