Brecht's play Fear and Misery of the Third Reich consists of a series of playlets, portraying National Socialist Germany of the 1930s as a land of poverty, violence, fear and pretence. Nazi antisemitism is depicted in several of the sketches, including "the Physicist", "Judicial Process", and "the Jewish Wife".

In a small Tatar village during the traditional holiday of the beginning of plowing, monks appear accompanied by soldiers. Trying to convert the local population to Orthodoxy by force, the monks and soldiers meet a tough rebuff from the locals. The wife of the peasant Bulat dies, and his son Asfan is taken away in an unknown direction.

A story of Belarusian children that are enrolled in a special school. The orphans live in gymnasium shelter under poor conditions and high-school students are showing interest in life in Soviet.