A well-to-do Jewish child from Poland, caught in the middle of World War II, must fight for her own survival, abandoning all she knows and adapting to the hell in which she finds herself.

SYNOPSIS:

14-year-old MARYLA is a force. She’s lovable, spontaneous, and stubborn, displaying the latter primarily when her mother asks anything of her. She loves her mother, though, along with her father, her sister, KASIA, and her boyfriend, RAJMUND. This lovely little life suddenly disappears the day the German army invades Poland and occupies Krakow. This event comes secondary, however, as she will always remember that day as the day when the German commander stood her father up in the town square for all to see and shot him dead, along with 9 others, as a warning to those that might act out.

Maryla barely holds it together. Her mother degenerates. And when Maryla finally breaks, she burns their Nazi-occupied family cafe to the ground and escapes the city with Kasia in tow. That first night, though, they become separated. Maryla tries to find Kasia to no avail and winds up being discovered by “The Resistance,” a mix-n-match group of British soldiers, who parachuted in to wreak havoc behind enemy lines, and Polish citizens.

She forces her way into the ranks of the outfit and fights alongside the men throughout the next three years. During this time she sees things and performs actions that she never dreamt of, let alone thought she was capable of doing. On a scouting mission, she notices a young girl, quickly realizing that it’s Kasia! She’s being shipped to Birkenau. Maryla turns herself in to be with her sister.

To her dismay, once she arrives at the camp she cannot find Kasia. As the end of the war draws near, it is apparent, both through the attitude of the German soldiers and the increase in the number of gassings, that she will not be alive much longer. She hatches and executes a plan to get to her sister and escape. But their plan is disrupted and they must hide in the woodshed.

Days pass and the camp becomes silent. The silence is disrupted when Russian voices can be heard entering the camp, liberating Maryla, Kasia, and all who were tortured there.