Unscrupulously ambitious Brutus Jones escapes from jail after killing a guard and through bluff and bravado finds himself the emperor of a Caribbean island.

Germany, 1945. The War is over, and it has left a slew of devastated families in its wake. Among them are Maria and her mother, two refugees who find themselves working on a farm in the German countryside after they are forced out of their home by violence and political upheaval. It is there that little Maria makes an unlikely friend: an American soldier — an enemy soldier — who, through one act of unnecessary kindness, teaches Maria and her family a powerful lesson in compassion and humanity during the most inhumane of times.