Brunet, partitro kommunist, bliver ved Frankrigs sammenbrud i 1940 sammen med 20000 andre mennesker sendt til Tyskland i fangelejr. Her kaster han sig ud i politisk agitation og forsøger at etablere kommunistiske celler i lejren. Men i takt med at virkeligheden går op for Brunet, kommer han i konflikt med sin kommunistiske overbevisning. Idealisten opdager, da illusionen brister, at den var det eneste værn mod en fuldstændig meningsløs tilværelse.
Author
Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre, normally known simply as Jean-Paul Sartre, was a French existentialist philosopher and pioneer, dramatist and screenwriter, novelist and critic. He was a leading figure in 20th century French philosophy. He declined the award of the 1964 Nobel Prize in Literature "for his work which, rich in ideas and filled with the spirit of freedom and the quest for truth, has exerted a far-reaching influence on our age." In the years around the time of his death, however, existentialism declined in French philosophy and was overtaken by structuralism, represented by Levi-Strauss and, one of Sartre's detractors, Michel Foucault.
