1918. Fábián Bálint is forced to kill humans on the Italian front. At home his sons drown the priest, the lover of their mother, in the river Kraszna. Mrs. Fábián turns insane. Following his arrival home Bálint becomes the liveried coachman of the baron.

A group of landless Hungarian peasants accept work as migrant-laborers on a farm in northern Germany where the wages are good, and the wives and family are allowed to accompany them. Though it is in the midst of World War II, they are relatively well-off. However, they glimpse the treatment accorded to POWs and others who are not so gently treated, and at the conclusion of the year's harvest, they choose to return to Hungary and are quickly swept up in the tides of war. This film is part of a series of films by award-winning, well-respected director Zoltan Fabri who devoted much time and effort chronicling the struggle against fascism.

In the tragic autumn of 1944, the possibility of liberation from the war and the chains of the German alliance flashes before our eyes. Lacking leadership, in the first few hours people cannot yet know that their hopes are dashed, and they prepare the country not for celebration, but for burial. Some of the soldiers defect to the advancing Soviet forces, while others reload their weapons. A small group chooses a third path: they flee the front and try to fight their way home through adventurous journeys and encounters.