A young Belarusian woman in occupied Minsk

Minsk fell on 28 June 1941, six days after the launch of Barbarossa: the Soviet capital of Belarus was one of the first major cities conquered, partly destroyed and already emptied of some of its inhabitants. The city passed under the military administration of the Wehrmacht, then, on 1 September 1941, was incorporated into the Generalkommissariat Weißruthenien headed by Gauleiter Wilhelm Kube, under the Reichskommissariat Ostland. The Minsk ghetto, one of the largest in Eastern Europe, was created as early as July 1941, and the Einsatzgruppen were already carrying out mass executions.

The daily proximity to the occupier placed many young women before concrete dilemmas: working as an interpreter, waitress, employee, or domestic for the German administration could mean access to food, a protective Ausweis, a roof. Accepting an officer's protection — a relationship sometimes imposed, sometimes consented to out of necessity — fell under "horizontal collaboration." But such a path was perilous: partisans and Soviet propaganda regarded any rapprochement as treason punishable by death.

The extreme brutality of the regime — requisitions, famine, reprisals — also closed doors: keeping clear of all contact offered no guarantee of survival, while the neighbouring forests and countryside stirred with clandestine activity. Approached by a German officer who offers her protection and provisions, a young woman of Minsk must decide how to get through the occupation.