Liuba Vasnetsova lives in a provincial boarding school, dreams of finishing it sooner rather than later and go to St Petersburg to become a stewardess. The future seems bright: after boarding school she receives the keys to a new apartment, with a new life ahead. But on the day of her graduation she learns that she is not an orphan: her father is alive and not dead, as she was told earlier. The girl is shaken and decides to find him.

Based on real events. November 1943. The Nazis bring a new batch of Soviet orphans to Vyritsa, where a so-called "children's shelter" is set up in a former pioneer camp. The conditions here are unbearable: cold, hunger, forced labor, a punishment cell for disobedience, and execution for attempting to escape. But the worst thing is that children are used as blood donors for wounded Germans. Despite all the horror and inconceivability of what is happening, having united, the young heroes find the strength and courage to resist and decide to escape.