Berlin, 1940, and the city is filled with fear At the house on 55 Jablonski Strasse, its various occupants try to live under Nazi rule in their different ways the nervous Frau Rosenthal, the bullying Hitler loyalists the Persickes, the retired judge Fromm and the unassuming working-class couple Otto and Anna Quangel Then the Quangels receive the devastating news that their beloved son has been killed fighting in France Shocked out of his quiet existence, the usually taciturn factory foreman Otto is provoked into an action that will endanger both his and Anna's life