Sixteen-year-old Lilja and her only friend, the young boy Volodja, live in Russia, fantasizing about a better life. One day, Lilja falls in love with Andrej, who is going to Sweden, and invites Lilja to come along and start a new life.
Through the innocent eyes of Bruno, the eight-year-old son of the commandant at a German concentration camp, a forbidden friendship with a Jewish boy on the other side of the camp fence has startling and unexpected consequences.
One bad event begins a chain reaction of misery as problems transfer from one person to another. It starts when a schoolteacher is fired and projects his issues onto his teenage son.