Two amateur circus kids from a poor Ukrainian village, 10-year-old Barbu and his older sister Mimma, are sold to a circus artist called Caruso who promises them a career in the West. Caruso smuggles them to Berlin and separates them from each other; he sells Mimma into prostitution, while Marcel, an older Albanian boy, teaches Barbu how to snatch purses. When Barbu discovers what happened to Mimma, he decides to free her from the brothel.