A widow tries to get her daughter to safety in World War II Italy.

Cesira, a widow in her early 30's, lives in Rome during World War II. Terrified by the Allied bombings, she decides to leave her small grocery store and take Rosetta, her 13-year-old daughter, back to her home village in the district of Ciociaria. Before she departs, Cesira makes love to Giovanni, a neighboring coal dealer who agrees to look after the store during her absence. When Cesira and Rosetta reach the village, they settle down to a quiet life, removed from the anxieties of the war. Eventually Cesira becomes involved with Michele, a disillusioned intellectual, but their romance is complicated by Rosetta, who is infatuated with him. One day, a group of retreating Germans arrive at the village and force Michele to guide them across the mountains. Cesira then decides to return to Rome, but during the journey, she and Rosetta are brutally raped by some Moroccan soldiers in the ruins of a bombed church. The horrifying experience leaves Rosetta in a state of shock; conscious only of the ordeal, she prostitutes herself for a pair of nylon stockings. When word arrives that Michele has been killed by the Germans, Rosetta's bitterness is dissolved, and she is reunited with her mother by a common bond of grief and suffering.