Based on war memories and set in the authentic scenery of the former concentration camp, the story centers around the life and struggle of women, inmates of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. The film has a loose structure. The action encompasses several parallel plots. Marta, Polish Jew, activist in the resistance movement in the camp, who died in an attempt to escape. Eugenia – Russian prisoner and a camp doctor, who is in fact trying to rescue the ill, but is tortured and executed. A German communist, Anna, who is sent to the underground prison cell. A picture about human sufferings and tragedies, but also about the struggle to preserve one’s own dignity. The tragic fate of the prisoners, the barbarism and sadism of the Nazis is depicted in the film by the director, who is a former prisoner of the Oswiecim concentration camp. It was a first film that has been distributed worldwide and acclaimed as a film of great calibre. It is one of the most harrowing films about World War II.