The touching fates of two families caught between the fronts of the South Tyrolean freedom struggle: Mall alternates between the perspective of a young boy whose father is arrested for reasons he cannot understand and later dies under mysterious circumstances, and the viewpoint of a young woman whose speech-impaired brother becomes a victim of a failed bombing. In this way, he paints a vivid picture of a time that was defined even in its most intimate areas by the question of what means one could use to defend oneself against actual or perceived state oppression—a theme that has lost none of its urgency and relevance.