Leo Perutz' thriller deals with the persecution of a psychotic murderer in Vienna in 1909 who seems to lead his victims into a brilliantly hidden form of suicide.
A Yenish boy is placed in a mental hospital and experiences the Nazi euthanasia program. Aware of what was happening and attached to friends, the lad attempts to sabotage the program. The film addresses the complexities of the program director, the lives of the child victims, and the struggles of the child protagonist. More than five thousand children died in the Nazi euthanasia program.
Painting is an unacceptable vocation for a woman in provincial Germany in the year 1900, but budding artist Paula Becker is determined to make her own rules.