policeman with a wife and two children, and a third on the way, just assigned his first job as chief of a crew in a rural town, close to the German border. When the German army invades and moves through his town, Jacob and his crew have no defense. They can only watch the tanks rumble by without stopping. Jacob is forced to deal with the increasingly disastrous events of the Nazi regime's occupation. He learns that in the end that every action he takes, no matter how well-intentioned, has enormous, long-lasting consequences to those around him.