In 1939, before every­thing changed, Han­nah Rosen­thal lived a charmed life. Now the streets of Berlin are draped with red, white, and black flags; their fine pos­ses­sions are hauled away, and they are no longer wel­come in the places that once felt like home. Han­nah and her best friend Leo make a pact: come what may, they promise to have a future togeth­er.

A glim­mer of hope appears when their par­ents dis­cov­er the Saint Louis, a transat­lantic lin­er that can give Jews safe pas­sage to Cuba. But the ship that was once their sal­va­tion seems like­ly to become their death sen­tence. Han­nah and Leo must face the grim real­i­ty that they could be torn apart. Their future is unknown, and their only choice will have an impact in gen­er­a­tions to come.

Decades lat­er in New York City, Anna Rosen receives a mys­te­ri­ous enve­lope from Han­nah, a great-aunt she has nev­er met but who raised her deceased father. In an attempt to piece togeth­er her father’s past, Anna trav­els to Havana to meet Han­nah. Bring­ing togeth­er the pain of the past with the mys­ter­ies of the present, Han­nah gives Anna a sense of their shared his­to­ries, hon­or­ing those they loved and cru­el­ly lost.