Set in 1942, film opens with an Aryan washerwoman arrival to the Warsaw's ghetto. The Jewish wife she worked for before the war hires her to take her young daughter to the countryside until the war is over. Realizing she has the upperhand, the maid is rude and overbearing with her former employer, allowing the desperate woman to shower her with gifts and money before she'll take the child away. Later, they leave by train, but it's stopped, and they have to proceed on foot. By this time, the innocent youngster begun to charm her companion, so by the time they are stopped by German patrol, the woman is prepared to risk her life for the child.