A Lvov Jewish youth watches from the Ghetto as his father, then his sister, and finally his mother are taken away by the Nazis in Poland in 1942.
Left to his own skills, and with an Aryan look, the boy buys a new identity in the black market and emerges as Jan Kot.
Traveling and working together with other Jewish boys, they adopt "Kashtan, " which is Polish for Chestnut, as their code word for Jews, fearing that anyone might overhear their conversations and turn them in to the SS.
Kot's every move to outwit the Nazis and Luftwaffe is a gamble, like roulette.