Staufen in the year 1635. In the midst of the Thirty Years' War, the plague breaks out. But it is not only the Black Death that claims victims. An old score remains to be settled between the gravedigger and the family of the Staufen castle governor, Ulrich Dreyling von Wagrain, and the envious village shoemaker is determined to drive the Jewish Bomberg family out of their home and destroy them.