The aging gentleman Vukašin Katić, his children Milena and Ivan, Milena’s husband Bogdan Dragović and their son Vladimir are members of the Katić family, a bourgeois family from Belgrade. We follow their lives during the tumultuous historical events between the mid 1930’s and November 1941.

Bogdan Dragović, a revolutionary, returns to his home after emigration, but Petar Bajević, an agent for the Comintern and Bogdan’s wartime friend, sends him to Paris on a mission. Bogdan accepts the mission as he is trying to reestablish connections with the Communist Party, from which he was expelled as a Trotskyist. While Bogdan is away, his wife Milena embarks on an emotional affair with Petar. Milena and Bogdan’s son Vladimir, a young revolutionary and member of the Communist Party, turns agaist his father for ideological reasons.

We also follow the fate of the Luković family: father Bora, a government official, mother Dušanka, a housewife, and their children – Nađa, who falls in love with a German officer and is recruited to carry messages for the Russians, and Miško, a Communist and a revolutionary.

At the beginning of World War II, Milena and her brother leave Belgrade, Vladimir and Miško join the partisans, while Petar, Bogdan and Nađa are arrested by the Gestapo.