A VEB combine in Berlin-Rummelsburg – huge construction site, disturbed earth, tractors on rubble dumps, conveyor belts transporting stones, day and night shifts, summer and winter. Among the workers is 68-year-old Martha, one of the last rubble women – and the oldest, who made life habitable again after the war. Rising from the ruins.

During the break with bread and coffee, she tells: that she has been living on Karl-Marx-Allee since 1951, one and a half rooms, 39 marks rent. She raised two sons. She was awarded the socialist "Banner." The hard earning of a living has also hardened her features and shifted the feminine into the masculine. When it’s not about practical action, she remains taciturn and makes little fuss about herself.

Months later, Martha, now neatly dressed in a skirt and floral blouse, celebrates her farewell with cake and carnations and daffodils from her colleagues. She takes stock of her life, satisfied. As it says in the Psalm by Martin Luther: "and if it has been precious, then it has been effort and work."