The period during which the outer action of this narrative takes place is short: the last weeks of World War II and the first weeks after it. A time of transition, a time when the individual remains isolated or homeless. A young Jew, Jan Lobel, manages to escape from a concentration camp in southern Germany. A young gardener takes him in and hides him. He cannot stay. "Jan Lobel from Warsaw" is written in a language that makes the tension between people in Germany clear to us today, allowing us to empathize with it—this tension that cannot be resolved and prevents one person from truly approaching another. Everything happens as if in a dream.