One-Way Ticket

The corpse of a woman lacking any identification is found in the international express train from Prague to Stuttgart. Her seat-reservation ticket was issued in the name Marie Vláčilová. - Marie Vláčilová is fifty-six years old. She lost her husband in the Second World War, herself having spent several years in the concentration camp, and her only child, little Pavla, was placed in a German family for re-education. After the war, Pavla is found and returned to the native mother but is not able to have a warm relation to her any more. When she is seventeen, she leaves for Berlin on an excursion organized by the youth movement and does not return. Since then, Vláčilová has lived alone. One day, she is asked by the Czechoslovak authorities to go to Germany to give testimony in the trial of a war criminal. Marie is looking forward to seeing her daughter, who has married in the meantime and delivered a son. But, to Marie's surprise, Pavla warns her against attending the trial and giving testimony. Nonetheless, Marie agrees to take the journey. At the last moment, however, she withdraws and gives her seat-reservation ticket to an unknown woman who is later shot on the train. Upon learning about her death, Marie realizes what her duty is.