Hamburg, Germany, 1939. Getting a passage aboard the passenger liner St. Louis seems to be the last hope of salvation for more than nine hundred German Jews who, desperate to escape the atrocious persecution to which they are subjected by the Nazi regime, intend to emigrate to Cuba.
In 1944 many Germans in Eastern Prussia believed like Lena von Mahlenberg, daughter of a local aristocrat, that Hitler would surrender and spare them from being invaded by the vengeful Russian Red Army. He didn't and they had to flee.
At the Berlin dance school "Galant," worlds collide and the struggle between prudishness and emancipation is carried out. The proprietor of the dance school, Caterina Schöllack, has three daughters whom she orders to integrate into this hierarchically structured society. Two of her daughters seem to abide by their mother's wish. Only Monika, the middle daughter, rejects the given path and discovers rock 'n' roll for herself.
