Four Sons plot
Mother Bern lives with her four sons (Chris, Karl, Joseph and Fritz) from her Czech-German family in Czechoslovakia. When the Nazis invade Czechoslovakia just before the start of World War II, Mother Bern's sons part ways. Chris remains loyal to Czechoslovakia and joins the Resistance, Karl is attracted to the Nazi ideology, Joseph flees to America at the time, and the youngest son Fritz is conscripted into the German army. When the Germans invade Poland in 1939, Fritz is killed. But that is only the beginning of Mother Bern's agony.