A WWII bombing run strikes a small Germany town, including the temporary hospital in which two women have just given birth. Hedwig searches through the rubble for her baby and is elated to find him alive, not realizing that the child is actually the son of French foreign worker Madelaine, who lies stricken with fever. When Madelaine wakes up, she sees that Hedwig has her baby, but no one helps her clear up the mistake, not even nurse Jutta, who witnessed the switch.

Several years after the war ends, Madelaine returns to Germany to claim her child, but at first, no one believes her story.