November 1941. One by one, the men leave, leaving only old men, women and children in the village of Bykovka. Ivan Vybornov, the chairman of the collective farm, is also raring to go to the front, but, obeying party discipline, remains in the village and continues to skillfully and energetically lead the collective farm, mobilizing fellow villagers to send bread for the front and starving cities.

Larisa Ogudalova, unlike her sisters, refuses to obey her mother's wish that she marry a wealthy old man in order to collect a dowry

This story of the Nazi prison camps in the 1930s deals with the attempts of the Nazi guards to break the spirit of the Communists in concentration camps.