A story about the tragic fate of a Jewish political activist who committed suicide on 12th May 1943 in London. What he did was supposed to be a sign of protest against the world’s passive attitude towards the tragedy of Holocaust. The story is told from the point of view of a young British journalist who, as most of the people living in the West back then, was unaware of the extent of the crime taking place in the east of Europe at that time.
Justyna, a young woman who’s the main protagonist in the film, buys a flat at a bailiff auction regardless the risk it may bring. When she wants to move in it turns out that the keys she was given do not fit the locks. A dream about a place of her own turns into a nightmare.
Péter, a literary critic, is tasked by the secret police to persuade Social Democratic politician, Anna Kéthly, who has been living in exile for decades, to return home.
During Stalin's reign of terror, Evgenia Ginzburg, a literature professor, was sent to 10 years hard labor in a gulag in Siberia. Having lost everything, and no longer wishing to live, she meets the camp doctor and begins to come back to life.
During the Nazi era, a Jewish woman on the run takes a trolley which passes near the Warsaw ghetto, where the uprising battle is taking place, and some passengers are struck by stray bullets. They take temporary refuge in an empty building, and there she has a chance meeting with her ex-fiancé. He offers to put her up--that is, hide her--for a few days. He's now married, a professional who lives in an idyllic suburb reached by a trolley that runs through the woods. His wife seems more committed to putting up the fugitive than he is. The story involves the neighbors, the building owner who avoids involvement and seeks solace in classic poetry, and the super and his suspicious wife.
