The Most Precious of Cargoes Ending Explained & Movie Spoilers: Is The Woodcutter Dead?

I think it’s aptly said that in spite of all the horrors we have committed, people still have a bit of humanity left in them. Following the same philosophy, The Most Precious of Cargoes is a poignant fairy tale set against the terrifying backdrop of the Holocaust. Based on a novel by Jean-Claude Grumberg, the author assumes the role of the narrator to introduce us to a world that is beautiful with rabbits and dogs and wolves playing around, but in the same world the great powers bomb each other to oblivion in World War 2. Similar to the 2013 film The Book Thief, this movie emphasizes how a single choice can be bigger than the hateful ideology of a whole nation.

Spoilers Ahead

What happens in the movie?

The Most Precious of Cargoes begins with a poor woodcutter and his wife living in a small village. The couple didn’t have any kids; the woodcutter didn’t mind having one less mouth to feed, but his gentle and pious wife could no longer endure the agonizing loneliness that enveloped them. One day, the woodcutter’s wife sees a freight train pass by, and she prays to the ‘train god’ to leave her a little cargo that can help them. At first, she doesn’t notice anything and is sad about it, but then the distant cry of a baby fills her empty heart with joy. She battled her way through heavy snow drifts to find the baby and take her home. The woodcutter isn’t delighted by the sight of a demon child, which is the exact word he uses due to his anti semitic beliefs. He believes that Jews are heartless, and this child, too, is a child without a heart. The woodcutter’s constant nagging leads to his wife leaving the house whenever he comes back from work, and she stays in the dark old shack outside their hut with the baby. The wife can’t get milk for the baby, so she goes to a man who has a goat. Now, this mysterious guy was a participant in an earlier war, in the course of which he scarred half of his face. The man debates with the woodcutter’s wife for a long time before agreeing to give milk to the god’s child in exchange for the nice and expensive cloth the baby was swaddled in. Even though she lost her husband’s company, she was finally happy living her life for a child the train god left her. 

How does the woodcutter realize his hate is unfair?

Even months after his wife brought a Jewish child into his house, the woodcutter doesn’t grow any empathy for the baby. One night, the noise of a crying baby triggers him, and he asks his wife to choose between himself and the baby. But when he accidentally puts his hand on the baby’s chest, he feels her heartbeat. The poor woodcutter was brainwashed into believing that a whole race doesn’t have any heart, but he keeps feeling the innocent and harmless baby’s heartbeat through the next day. Finally, he decides to come back early from work and finds the baby playing with their dog in the backyard. Hiding from his wife, he picks the baby up and lets her play with his beard. Both the baby and the woodcutter have grown somewhat, and at last the couple make up. In a drinking session with the other woodcutters, he stands up for the ‘heartless’ people and claims that the heartless have a heart. His behavior isn’t entertained by his other comrades, and some begin to grow suspicious of the Woodcutter.

What happened to the real parents of the baby?

In a flashback sequence, we get to know that the kid had a sibling, and both of them were with their parents, being deported to Auschwitz on a freight train. The train is full of helpless Jewish people, and there’s no mercy for the old or the children. The father knew that his newborns had no chance at the death camp. From afar, the sight of the mere shadow of the woodcutter’s wife ignited a conflict in his soul. Despite his paternal attachment, he let one of his children slip from the window, hoping she’d survive. His wife couldn’t believe what he had done, and he became a stranger to her. When the train stops, they get separated, and the wife doesn’t care to look out for him, and she and her baby vanish into the crowd. 

How does the woodcutter die?

The woodcutter’s friends start to snoop around and gossip about his life, and one of them finds his wife and questions her. He asks all sorts of twisted questions, implying the child might be illegitimate and a Jew. The woodcutter’s wife handles him fine, using her husband being a quiet man as an excuse. The woodcutter is finally happy, and his family seems complete with the precious little cargo. He finds a doll-shaped piece of wood at work and shapes it into a toy the baby can play with—beautiful stuff. But trouble in paradise wasn’t far, and three of his friends showed up at his house, asking him to give up the impure child. He feigns cooperation at first, but his true response to fascism is burying an axe in a man’s chest. He takes on the other two men as well, killing them both, but he gets shot in the process. The woodcutter’s last words were to bless the child to live. The woodcutter’s wife packs up and flees with the child, seeking asylum with the man who provided the baby with his goat’s milk. But the dirty war follows them, and the man is shot by a soldier for pretty much no reason at all. The woodcutter’s wife prays for his soul and leaves for the city with the baby and the goat. 

The engineered horror of Nazi camps and its aftermath 

Bodies piling up on each other, the horrific torture of the concentration camp is shown through macabre animations, and no one could sleep soundly after processing this sequence unless they’re in deep denial. We see the child’s father, and he looks like a man whose soul has been sucked out of his body. He was given the task of disposing of the dead bodies of other Jews, and by the time he’s rescued by the Allied forces, he’s barely human anymore. With only a picture of his wife and kids, he sets out on a long journey, hoping he’d find his lost baby. After days of walking in the harsh winter without food, he finally passes out on a railway track. A kind farmer finds him and takes him to the city, and the biggest revelation was still to come. In the city, he finds a woman with her child selling what looks like cheese, and their tablecloth resembles the cloth his baby was wrapped in when he threw her out of the window. He couldn’t believe that he’d found this little girl, but when he approaches them, she’s scared, and she holds the woodcutter’s wife tight. Disheartened at first, the man then looks at his own reflection in the window. He’s scared of himself and what has become of him, and he runs away from his only surviving family. 

What happened to the precious little cargo?

In The Most Precious of Cargoes’ ending, the narrator takes us into the future, which feels like a lifetime away from the atrocities of World War 2. The father of the child got over his trauma and turned his life around, becoming one of the best pediatricians in the world, helping children. In a train station, he comes across a magazine with a young girl on its cover. He can’t understand the language, so he asks for a translation from his colleague. Turns out, the young girl is named Maria Tchekolowska, and she’s the top runner to be named one of the young pioneers. What’s remarkable is Maria comes from a very poor family who’s suffered a great deal in the war, and she was raised by a poor woodcutter and his wife. The woodcutter’s wife became a cheese merchant later on, and their fortunes changed. Realizing the girl is his daughter, he buys a copy of the magazine and carries on with his day. 

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