In 1945, following Nazi occupation, Hungary was again under siege. Russian troops looted the city, taking everything they wanted, setting homes on fire, and arresting innocent passers-by. Toward the end of the war the population had to live exclusively on whatever stocks or reserves it had piled up. By 1945 the situation was so desperate, that animal corpses (often flattened by tanks) had also been eaten. But the most tragic losses were the hundreds of thousands of people whom the Soviet Army seized for deportation to Russia. Malinka robot - “a little work” - was the slogan with which the population was taken. After the Soviet Army enters Hungary in the dead of winter, and destroys most of Budapest, Anna, her critically injured husband and their two children find refuge in a barn with a kind country family. The little they have left of their upper class family fortune is now useless in war-torn Hungary, as even gold can’t buy food. Lacking even in the most essential ingredients to nurse her husband back to health, Anna takes her children to a broken down Russian supply truck hoping to bring back some of its cargo: salt.