| Director | Andrzej Wajda |
|---|
The story takes place in the German village of , at the border to Switzerland. A man and his son visit the village to find out about an incident in the life of the man's mother, Pauline Kropp, in 1941 in this village. However, they are met with mistrust by the local population.
In 1941, the owner of the local fruit-and-vegetables shop has been called up. His shop has a key function for the town's supply situation. His customers know from World War I how rationing can make the owner of such a shop very rich if only he's egoistic enough to get corrupted by well-heeled customers who don't care whether their poorer country fellowmen's families starve. So when his wife Pauline starts to run the shop alone, her character is subsequently of public interest for all citizens who are concerned about the well-being of their families during the ongoing war. Pauline, still young and attractive, shares the fate of other soldiers' wives who constantly face the fear her husband might return crippled, maimed or not at all.
But because her husband's shop is highly important for the town's community, she gets somebody who can ease her working load, and so a Polish prisoner of war named Stanisław must serve her. She obviously finds him handsome and relishes that he has to obey all her commands. Eventually she seduces him; the unlikely couple sometimes celebrate their love even literally in the open. Even when a town's official informs her that her evident bliss leads other women to doubt her integrity she still doesn't let go of her love affair. The town official keeps on warning her that under the prevailing Nazi laws her adultery is punishable as "Rassenschande". Pauline keeps on putting the Polish POW in lethal danger until he is finally taken to court and sentenced to death. Pauline is imprisoned for two years.
Her son and her grandson are appalled when they realise that the official, who initially had warned Pauline but in the end had abandoned her, still lives in this very village.