Berlin, in the summer of 1933: Sixteen-year-old Wolfgang Ruge leaves Nazi Germany with his two years older brother. The goal of the two young communists is the country that holds all their hopes - the Soviet Union. In Moscow, Ruge encounters many things that excite him, but also some that are disillusioning. When the Wehrmacht invades the Soviet Union, he is initially banished because of his background and soon after sent to a labor camp. It is not until 1956, three years after Stalin's death, that he can return to Berlin. "Promised Land" is one of the rare eyewitness accounts by a German author about Stalinist terror and particularly about the little-noticed group of so-called labor conscripts, who were forced into labor and interned during the war without even a formal criminal charge. A report.