After their training, the boys left under the charge of Danish sergeant Carl Leopold Rasmussen who is determined to treat the young prisoners without sympathy.

The POWs are given little food due to post-war shortages and begin to suffer from malnourishment, with Ernst befriending a young local girl to steal some bread from her.

Most of the boys become ill after eating grain contaminated with rat faeces that they found on a nearby farm; they are treated by Rasmussen who makes them purge themselves with seawater.

Rasmussen gradually treats his charges more kindly, stealing food from the base for them and tries to maintain morale by reporting that Wilhelm has survived.

During another day of demining, Werner is blown to bits after encountering landmines buried one above another, leaving his twin brother Ernst distraught.

They manage to rescue her but instead of returning to safety with Sebastian, Ernst decides he cannot go on without his brother and commits suicide by walking into the uncleared section and is promptly killed.

After witnessing this act of kindness and bravery from the boys, Rasmussen relents in his treatment of them and reassures a grieving Sebastian that they will soon be able to go home.

The website's critical consensus states: "Land of Mine uses an oft-forgotten chapter from the aftermath of World War II to tell a hard-hitting story whose period setting belies its timeless observations about bloodshed and forgiveness.

[14] The film gained a standing ovation at the Toronto International Film Festival,[15] with Stephen Farber of The Hollywood Reporter stating "Director Martin Zandvliet has come up with a fresh and compelling approach to this well-traveled territory"[16] and David D'Arcy of the Screen Daily writing that "Land of Mine achieves moments of chilling suspense in scenes of untrained soldiers defusing mines by hand and in the bloody bodies that leap into the air when the boys fail".