Polish beginning of 1945. Under the pretense of punishing "national traitors," the Communist Security Service in a recently liberated nation is obliterating its adversaries. On the site of a previous Nazi concentration camp called Zgoda/Reconciliation, they set up a labor camp for Germans, Silesians, and Poles. In an effort to save Anna, the Polish prisoner he is in love with, Franek accepts a job as a warder in the camp. He is unaware that Erwin, a fellow prisoner and his German friend, has also been in love with this girl for a long time. In the misguided attempt to manipulate the system, Franek joins the communists.