"Manja" tells the story of five children and their families from 1920 to 1934. The novel begins with the depiction of the nights when the children are conceived: deep love, marital rape, fleeting passion, tender warmth, and frozen alienation are the various forms of their origins. Their family backgrounds are also very different: Karl comes from a class-conscious proletarian family, Heini from the liberal bourgeoisie, Franz from the petty bourgeoisie, Harry from the wealthy upper bourgeoisie, and Manja from a poor immigrant family from Poland. The friendship of these children, who have created their own world in an abandoned lot on the outskirts of the city, is put to a severe test in 1933: Manja and Harry are suddenly no longer "racially pure." Anna Gmeyner depicts the political and human upheaval of 1933.