In this moral study of heroism set in a remote Slovak village in the closing days of World War II, a schoolteacher and his young wife find a wounded Russian parachutist in their front yard just as the Germans are coming in to occupy their village. As his wife readily becomes involved with anti-Nazi partisans, the schoolteacher collaborates with the Germans, but, at the end of his humiliation, finds the courage to save his honor and the innocent victims of the Nazis.