Freed Polish soldiers are trapped in a small town in Germany during the last days of World War II. After a doctor's daughter is raped by a concentration camp worker, the Poles allow her and her father to stay in the house that is their temporary quarters. While waiting to be repatriated, the war-weary group is forced to fight some German soldiers who invade the town. The war brings out conflicting emotions of the Poles who find themselves trapped in the house and once again under fire from the enemy.
To convince the prison warden against releasing him, a middle-aged Polish man recounts his life, one he considers to have been characterized by exceptionally bad luck.
Hamlet suspects his uncle has murdered his father to claim the throne of Denmark and the hand of Hamlet's mother, but the prince cannot decide whether or not he should take vengeance.
Roza marries a promising young architect, Juliusz ; for a few months, they have a blissful life together. Then World War II breaks out and within weeks Juliusz is deported to a concentration camp. Months, and then years go by, until Roza abandons any hope that her husband might return. She meets and falls in love with another man, and tries to put her life back together, but one day, unexpectedly, Juliusz does return - a shattered, mere ghost of his former self, physically crippled and tormented by memories of the camps. First out of duty, then out of pity, Roza starts to care for him, but her feelings slowly are transformed into a kind of revulsion
