A group of women are workmates at a laundry. Rike is spreading a rumor about the manager Marta, a rumor that Marta is a lesbian and that she once tried to seduce Rike. This leads to an explosive situation at the workplace.

In 1963, forty-and-some-years old Martin (Erno Müller) arrives back in Copenhagen after several years in Africa. He has never really recovered from the traumatic experiences he made as a member of the resistance movement during the German occupation of Denmark, 1940-45. Unintended he gets in contact with a young girl who seems to be an archetype representative for the young post-war generation 1960. She is engaged in a protest movement trying to avoid both nuclear energy plants and atomic weapons on Danish soil. He falls in love with her, but the distance between their two generations is insurmountable. Rapid historical changes have raised a wall between the two of them and stands in the way for their desire and their attempts to understand one another. A reunion with old wartime comrades and the revival of an unbearable common mistake does not make it easier for Martin.