Offering a sweeping epic encompassing the years 1911–1945, this adaptation of the best-selling novel by Annejet van der Zijl tells the real-life love story of a mixed-race couple and their struggle to survive and help others in the Nazi-occupied Netherlands. Free spirit Rika, with four children, leaves her unfaithful husband and in order to survive, she rents out a spare room to the university student Waldemar, a bright young man from Surinam who is suffering deeply in racist Holland. Against all odds, Rika and Waldemar fall in love.