Cross of Valor

The film is made of three separate stories. All three tell what the war left behind. In the first a soldier is given a medal. The decoration is the Cross of Valor. In his village he was always taken for a fool. Now he comes home on leave. He hopes to show the medal and win some standing. All that is left of his village, though, is burnt walls. In the second a dog takes shelter with a Polish unit. Before long the animal’s past comes out. The dog was trained to stand guard at a concentration camp. The third story takes place after the war. A young woman is regarded as the widow of a hero. Everyone treats her by that title. What she wants for herself, though, is another life. Jerzy Turek and Aleksander Fogiel appear in the eighty minute film, a Polish production Kazimierz Kutz finished in 1959.