This Soviet film is based on one of Vasily Grossman's first short stories, "In the Town of Berdichev". During the Russian Civil War (1918-1922), the female commissar of the Red Army cavalry Klavdiya Vavilova finds herself pregnant. Until her child is born, she is forced to stay with the family of a poor Jewish blacksmith Yefim Magazannik, his wife, mother-in-law, and six children.
