Synopsis
Eight men and women remember their childhood in the shadow of the GULAG. They were born in the Soviet Union, their parents were persecuted or killed by their own comrades during Stalin's ethnic cleansing.German communists emigrate to the Soviet Union in the 1930s. Their children who born later in the Soviet Union are supposed to be raised as faithful socialists.
During Stalin's ethnic cleansing, mothers, fathers, and sometimes even both parents are arrested and deported to GULAG camps. Some of them are shot dead. Several children are put into children's homes, others are deported to the Soviet hinterland.
A life deprived of freedom - be in a children's home, banishment, or in a camp - becomes a normal way of life for them. In the 1950s they eventually come to Germany. They now live in a part of Germany - the GDR - which is governed by people who have also returned from exile in the Soviet Union, but were not persecuted. They have their reasons why they remain silent about the years of Stalinist terror and do not allow others to speak about that time either.