To the Very End

The Prague boy Štěpán spends summer holidays at his grandmother’s. The local gamekeeper catches him shooting small birds with an air rifle, and confiscates the weapon. The gamekeeper’s granddaughter is of a similar age to Štěpán and they become friends. Štěpán asks her to get his rifle back before his father returns from abroad. The girl is courageous and straightforward; she herself knows that she was brought up a bit like a boy. Štěpán, on the contrary, is timid. He does not want to walk through a railway tunnel nor peak into the nearby military area. The two children discover a human skull in the forest. The criminalists find out that it originates from a mass grave from the Second World War. Štěpán wants to disprove his cowardice and invites the girl for a midnight date to the site of the grave. But he gets frightened again – the girl hangs herself on harnesses and looks like hanged. Štěpán leaves for Prague airport to welcome his father, but he does not show up. At home, the boy finds a crying mother and learns that the father died abroad in his job, which he kept secret even from his family. The commentary then commemorates all those who sacrifice their lives for their homeland even in times of peace.