| Plot Summary |
After an unsuccessful escape a mother and her son are deported to a prison camp. The mother sees her child hunger and secretly gives him some left-over seeds, the last food she has. Shortly after, they are separated. The boy has to work until exhaustion, day in day out. When hunger and loneliness strike, he tries to fight it by eating a seed. But his hunger can not be stilled. The memory of his mother, though, warms him, gives him strength and hope. One evening, he holds the last seed in his hand. While sleeping, it slips out of his hand and falls into a crack in the floor. After waking up he realizes his final seed is missing. He spots it lying in the floor-crack, though cannot reach it. A few days later he notices a small plant has grown from the crack in the floor. Giving him hope, he manages to extract the plant with some earth, to hide it from the guards. During an inspection, the small guard ultimately discovers the plant. Enraged, he begins to beat the boy repeatedly. Suddenly, however, the large guard intervenes, blocks the torturers' arm from a final blow and thus ends the beating. He takes the plant with him, on the way out. As the sun rises the big guard sneaks into the barracks and drags out the boy. With the guard standing behind him, the boy thinks this is the end. After a few moments the boy dares to look up and can hardly believe what he is seeing: Behind the fence on a small hill, he sees his plant that can now grow into a tree.
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