In World War II, the Jewish French artist and nightclub artist Fania Fenelon Goldstein is sent by the Nazis from Paris to the Auschwitz Concentration Camp. The gatekeepers take her garments and gear and they trim her hair short. One day, when she is extremely frail, she hears somebody asking whether any detainee could sing Giacomo Puccini's Madama Butterfly and she joins the gathering of artists that have been saved from the gas chambers to engage the Nazis performing music for them. She persuades the conductor Alma Rose to welcome her companion Marianne, telling that she would be a capable artist. Along the times of injurious treatment, they survive however losing their poise.
