The film is set in a signalman's house during the German occupation. When it turns out that the mother has committed adultery with a German, things start to go downhill for the father. Germans take over his land, and his children fend for themselves.
At the end of WWII the Dutch resistance kills a German officer in front of the house of a Dutch family. Years after the war the young boy who witnessed the killing runs into the members of the resistance who committed the killing.