Judith 1966

In Palestine shortly before the end of the British mandate, the Haganah learns that a former German tank commander, General Gustav Schiller, is teaching the Arabs battle tactics, but they are unable to locate him. They then learn of his Jewish former wife, Judith Auerbach Schiller, Sophia Loren, and arrange for her to be smuggled into Palestine via the port of Haifa. She is placed in the care of Aaron Stein, Peter Finch, a Haganah commander, at a kibbutz.

Schiller had abandoned his wife during the war and took away their son. Judith was then sent to the Dachau concentration camp, where she was forced to serve in an officers’ brothel, but survived.

Judith dislikes the kibbutz life, and is unable to tell the kibbutz leaders anything about Schiller, but Stein hopes that she can identify him. He “suggests” that she ask the local army commander, Major Lawton, Jack Hawkins, to help her. Judith travels to Haifa to see him and pleads with him to hand over the file on Schiller, which he eventually does. It turns out that Schiller was last known to be in Damascus, Syria.

Judith, Stein and a colleague are smuggled into Damascus, and after days of searching, they find Schiller. As they are about to capture him, Judith shoots and wounds him. Schiller is smuggled back to Palestine and interrogated, but he refuses to give any information. Left alone with Judith, he pleads for mercy. But as the kibbutz comes under attack by Arab forces, he finally reveals the battle plans, and also tells Judith that he knows the whereabouts of their son, Karl. The room in which he is being kept is bombed and Schiller is killed. Aaron promises that he will help Judith find her son.