The story revolves around a 14-year-old Yenish boy Ernst Lossa who was killed through euthanasia by Nazists.

In 2002, Domes began studying the life of Ernst Lossa, a nomad boy of Yenish ethnicity who traveled to southern Germany.

Ernst was separated from his parents in 1933, was deemed an orphan and was first sent to the orphanage in 1942, then transferred to a borstal and finally to an asylum at the age of twelve.

Domes described Ernst Lossa's life in this novel,[2] which was published by CBT (Random House) in 2008 as a children's book.

[3] In 2016, a film adaptation was made directed by the German director Kai Wessel.