October 1918: After returning to the civil life, the young Doctor Giorgino Volli searches for a group of children, which he had been the care-taker of before the first world war began. However, soon the searching becomes a part of hide-and-seek with death. Giorgino finds a village bordered with a treacherous marsh and rumours of wolves. There he also meets the mysterious Catherine....
A poor miner, Kuba Dařbuján, cares for his wife Markýtka and eleven children. When a newborn arrives, he seeks a godfather and, finding only Death fair to all, accepts a pact: as a doctor whom Death accompanies at the foot of a patient’s bed, he can heal; but if Death stands at the head, no cure is possible. Kuba eventually heals even a miserly brewer, violating the pact and imprisoning Death, leading to a world where no one can die and unforeseen chaos follows.
Prague, during World War II. Hana Kaufmann, a Jewish ophthalmologist, marries Dr. Antonín Bureš, a Christian man. When her family is sent to the Theresienstadt concentration camp, their romance turns into a struggle for survival.
