En el siglo XIX, en una región rural de Suiza, un buscavidas roba niños y los compra a sus familias para luego venderlos como limpiadores de chimeneas en la ciudad de Milán. Es el destino que le aguarda al pequeño Giorgio, que junto a sus compañeros de esclavismo, con los rostros de hollín y el corazón blanco, comparte la misma miseria pero también el mismo espíritu de rebelión. Juntos forman la asociación secreta de los Hermanos Negros, que bajo juramento de sangre se prometen protegerse entre ellos para sobrellevar sus penurias.
The "Our Gang" type adventures of German working class kids from a Berlin apartment building (number 67) during the early 1930s. With Nazism's rise, however, their tight-knit group unravels. One leader, Paul, becomes a Nazi.
10-year-old Rosmarin von Stetten lives with his widowed father Robert in the big city. During the holidays one day in the morning Rosmarin goes to the lake near the castle and meets Thymian, the poorest boy of the village, whose mother did not come back from the war and who has to do several jobs in the village for his living. The boys enter a boat, but both fall into the lake. Thymian crawls out of the water first and is found by a servant from the castle, who thinks he is Rosmarin and bring him to the castle and to bed. The boy doesn't know what happens and thinks he's spellbound...
