Depiction of the problem of collective responsibility for the tragedy of war and an attempt to answer the question whether the harmed have the moral right to be redressed for the wrong they suffered or whether forgiveness is the supreme form of humanitarianism.
A group of Polish officers stops in a deserted German town. They are former POWs, liberated by the Allied forces. The only remaining residents of the town are Dr. Rhode and his three daughters. The oldest one, Inga, was raped by the liberated forced laborers wandering around the town. The doctor attends to one of the officers, Jan, who is wounded. He promises to take care of the doctor’s daughters, to a great dissatisfaction and criticism of the other officers. They believe that no help should be given to Germans, who are responsible for the war. A stray SS unit attacks the town. The attack is repulsed, but Inga manages to sneak out to her former fiancé Otton, an SS officer. Otton opens fire from the church tower and gets killed in the firefight. Inga takes over. Her bullets hit one of Jan’s companions whose injuries turn out to be fatal. Jan gets to the tower. He shoots at the source of fire. After a while he realizes that he has killed Inga.
