During World War II, in a small town in German-occupied northern Italy, near the Croatian border, the family of a shoemaker named Giovanni Pettirosso tries to keep daily life as normal as possible. The mountainous coastal area where they live is remote from most of the fighting, but they are occasionally bombed by both the Allies and the Germans around the train tracks and the main roads and are constantly on the alert for the air-raid warnings. When the sirens wail, everyone heads for bunkers hidden in the mountains. The young eligible men have all been conscripted into military service, either by the defeated Italian army or by the Partisans, a communist-led organization of nationalists intent on an independent Yugoslavia. The Gentle Hearts of Foreign Flags shows life under the communist government and how their future was dramatically resolved.