A young artist,
Charlotte Salomon, and her family attend an opera in
1935 Berlin. Members of the
Nazi party interrupt her stepmother
Paula's performance and attempt to expel Jewish attendees. Charlotte thinks that her maternal grandparents are correct to depart for
Rome, though her father
Albert and Paula desire to remain in Germany. Charlotte paints a scene of the conductor ordering the Nazis to depart. While visiting her grandparents, Charlotte befriends an American woman, Ottilie Moore, at the
Sistine Chapel. Ottilie offers her home at the
Cote d'Azure as refuge to the family. Despite her parents' desire that she become a seamstress, Charlotte is accepted into the Academy of Fine Arts, where she develops her
expressionist style. She also befriends and romances
Alfred Wolfsohn, Paula's vocal teacher, who comforts her after her expulsion and asks her to illustrate his wartime memoirs. The two spend the day together in
Wannsee, only for Charlotte to learn that Alfred has a fiancée.
Kristallnacht happens that evening, during which Charlotte's paintings are burned and Jewish residents are rounded up. Albert is sent to the
Sachsenhausen concentration camp and returns to the family two months later. Albert and Paula obtain an exit visa for Charlotte by claiming that her grandparents are ill, and Charlotte is sent to France to live with Ottilie and her grandparents. Charlotte learns that her grandmother is increasingly mentally unwell. Charlotte falls in love with the groundskeeper Alexander Nagler, though her grandfather decides to move the three of them to
Nice after he finds out. Charlotte's grandmother commits suicide, after which her grandfather admits that both Charlotte's mother and aunt killed themselves. Charlotte returns to Ottilie's home where she confides in Alexander her family's history of mental illness and her desire to paint her life. Six weeks after she begins the project, Ottilie takes the young refugees who reside with her to America. She offers for Charlotte and Alexander to join her, but Charlotte returns to Nice as her visa is dependent on staying with her increasingly abusive grandfather. She eventually poisons him by putting
Veronal in his dinner. Charlotte, now pregnant by Alexander, continues to paint. Alexander outs himself as a Jew in order to marry Charlotte. She gives her collection of paintings, which she has titled
Life? Or Theatre? to the village doctor, Dr. Moridis, for safekeeping. Shortly after, the couple is taken away by Nazis. The epilogue informs the audience that Charlotte and Alexander were both killed in
Auschwitz. Paintings from
Life? Or Theatre? are interspersed with footage of the Salomons and Ottilie. ==Cast==