Bernhard Haber is ten years old when he arrives in a small Saxon town with his parents from Breslau in 1950, where the locals would prefer to see displaced persons and bomb victims leave as soon as possible. Although there is a demand for craftsmen and Bernhard's father is a carpenter, the locals naturally do not order their furniture from the outsider. The boy faces little better treatment at school; he quickly realizes that biting the bullet and taking hits repeatedly is the only way to get by. No one is surprised when Bernhard starts an apprenticeship as a carpenter after the 8th grade; rather, it is more surprising that he later earns a remarkable amount of money as a carousel owner. Peter Koller, who has transported paying guests to West Berlin in a self-built car and has to serve a few years in prison for it, knows exactly where Bernhard's wealth comes from, but he does not betray him. Overall, Haber is lucky with the people around him.