[[caption-width-right:250:BoyMeetsGirl - after a fashion]]

English title, ''Stars''. This 1959 [[EastGermany East German]] film set in a small Bulgarian village during WorldWarII concerns the tentative and doomed relationship between "[[KnownOnlyByTheirNickname Walter]]", a conscience-stricken German corporal, and Ruth, a Greek Jew imprisoned in the nearby concentration camp.

Needless to say, [[ForegoneConclusion it doesn't end well]].

!!This film contains examples of:

* AlmostKiss: Twice. First time they both break it off, and the second time, their lips touch, but Ruth quickly pulls away, saying "It can not be."
* DespairSpeech: Walter is fond of these.
* DownerEnding
* FalseReassurance
* FauxAffablyEvil: We first see Kurt coming to the aid of a tired Jewish woman - by gently lifting her child onto a cattle car for her.
* HandicappedBadass: Walter is limping.
* HowWeGotHere: The narration starts [[spoiler: as we see Ruth being deported and Walter missing her train]].
* ILied: Kurt lies [[spoiler: about the deportation schedule.]] He tells Walter by writing this on the latter's portrait of Ruth.
* KickTheDog: Kurt's vicious message to Walter that he scrawls on his portrait of Ruth.
* LaResistance: The Bulgarian partisans.
* LoveAcrossBattlelines
* MeaningfulEcho: When the protagonists are talking about stars and men Ruth says: -->''"Every human being has got a protective star in the sky, but once you rip it off from its place, Man can do nothing but perish"''. [[spoiler: And simbolically, when Walter finds at the station her ripped of yellow star [[TearJerker everybody know what does it mean]]. ]]
* OnlyKnownByTheirNickname: The partisans never learn "Walter"'s real name, and so refer to him by an apparently randomly chosen pseudonym, or as "the Corporal".
* SeparatedByTheWall: By the wire fence of the camp, in several shots.
* ShellShockedVeteran: Walter, who was previously stationed at Leningrad, shows signs of this.
* [[StartsWithTheirFuneral Starts With Their Deportation]]: The first scene of the film shows Ruth and the other inmates being loaded into cattle cars bound for Auschwitz
* [[SurprisinglyGoodForeignLanguage Surprisingly Good Bulgarian]]: One can discern a lot of Walter's character simply by the fact that has gone to the trouble of picking up some Bulgarian.
* TooGoodForThisSinfulEarth
* TrainStationGoodbye: Particularly gutting example. In the opening scene, Walter hopelessly chases after the train carrying Ruth to her death until it disappears into a tunnel.
* WorldWarII