Polish war exile Julia Smollen has escaped the horrors of a Nazi labour camp to forge a new life in California, with her daughter, Tasha. Sent away to the best school her mother can afford, growing up through the Cold War and the Space Race and coming into contact with the aspiring young Democrat, Jack Kennedy, Tasha is precocious, wilful and politically engaged. As intensely close as Tasha and her mother are, however, she remains unaware of the true identity of her father, the courageous German officer Martin Hamer, who was fatally wounded helping the then-pregnant Julia flee her occupied homeland.