A brilliant documentary about the growth of Israel into the Jewish homeland. Seventy-three years of struggle for religious freedom is vividly recorded using rare archive film footage and photographs of historic events in the development of 20th century Israel. Beginning with the Dreyfus Affair in 1894, the film covers Theodor Herzl, founder of modern Zionism; the earliest immigration and settlements; the formation of kibbutzim; the Balfour Declaration; the rise of European anti-Semitism; the British occupation of Palestine; Arab confrontations; the United Nations resolution; the "Exodus" incident, and the Six Day War.

In a village in the Ardennes, during the German occupation, finding rations is becoming almost impossible. Clovis, an ordinary labourer, decides to cross the occupied zone to bring back enough potatoes to feed his family. His plan is a success but Clovis rapidly becomes obsessed with storing the precious tubers.

Just before twilight, a small plane lands on the runway of a country airport. One passenger disembarks: Joe, the last survivor of a Jewish family, the Falsches. He has an appointment with them all tonight, forty years after leaving Berlin for New York in 1938. The Falsches are all waiting for him in the arrival lounge: those who perished in the concentration camps; those who left with Joe in 1938; and those who returned to Berlin after the war. Lilli, a young German woman, is there too; she is the daughter of a Nazi official, who was the love of Joe's youth, and who died during the bombing of Berlin. For Joe, it is a night of encounters, of celebrations beyond life and death.

David Levinstein, a young Jewish boy whose parents have been arrested and killed by the Nazis, is taken in by Monsieur Ray, the head of his school. Unfortunately for him, Donnadieu, a pro-Nazi schoolmaster, denounces him to the Gestapo and he is sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp. After being released in 1945, David attempts to live normally. He even marries Jacky, the woman he has fallen in love with. But fifteen years pass and the taste of revenge invades him and becomes irresistible. He eventually traces the teacher who gave him way.

Paris, 1418. The city is occupied by the Armagnacs, besieged by Philip of Burgundy. Caboche, a butcher's guild member and supporter of the Burgundians, wants to marry a young woman. To do so, he denounces his father, who is soon after murdered. The Grand Conétable of Burgundy also has his eye on Catherine, but will not be able to take her because Duke Philippe has fallen in love with her.

Alceste hates all of humanity, denounces its hypocrisy, cowardice and compromise. But he nevertheless loves Célimène, flirtatious and slanderous. The virtuous thus launches into battles lost in advance which force him to flee.