Teacher Ida Ramundo is Jewish, but keeps it a secret. Her husband died years ago and she lives with her son Nino.

Upon returning home, Nino establishes a very strong bond with Useppe but, despite this, he leaves his family to enlist as a volunteer.

Ida has lost everything: she and Useppe have to leave their country. They meet Giuseppe Cucchiarelli, a communist marble worker, and later end up in a warehouse with the Mille, a large and fun-loving Neapolitan family.

Nino takes Useppe to the partisan base, where he meets Mariulì, his girlfriend; the situation in Pietralata worsens as the Germans are ruthless to the Italians considered traitors.

While the Nazi occupation starves the city, Ida wanders around Rome in search of food for Useppe; when the Germans finally escape, the men return from the front, but the woman's suffering is not over yet.

Nino returns from the war, transformed once again, while Ida starts school again. The family rents a house in Testaccio, hoping that life will smile again as it once did.