Karl von Richter, a handsome young man with a dark past and a sinister future, is injured while skiing in the Italian Alps. He falls in love with Katrina Amorino, his dark-haired, blue-eyed nurse. Unaware Germany is preparing for war, Katrina naïvely moves to his home; but before she arrives, Karl joins the SS and begins implementing Hitler's deadly Final Solution, exterminating the Jews and other "deplorables." At the end of the war, SS Officer Karl heads home to find his parents dead, and Katrina and their young son missing. As he searches for Katrina, Karl's conscience reawakens, revealing dark truths. Meanwhile, Katrina, hiding in fear, agonizes over her impetuous decisions that have become a litany of sorrows that haunts her for decades to come.