A boy and his family learn to survive after German forces destroy and occupy Rotterdam. An uncle reveals traitorous Nazi ties that lead to a commission as a Waffen SS officer and his sister takes up with a German soldier and defects to Germany. Meanwhile, teen-aged Jan Makkreel lives by his wits as he is drawn into illegal transport of food, assisting Jews, and smuggling resistance information and false documents.

Jan is wrongly labeled a traitor at war's end. Charged with collaboration and betraying Jews, he is imprisoned with true Nazis where he comes of age in gritty prison situations that test him as a man. After eighteen months, the police clear him of wrongdoing and release him into a society that receives him only as an ex-convict. Jan Makkreel's account reveals how the burden of war and occupation leaves wounds and divisions that in some cases can be neither forgotten nor healed.