Tells two tales set during WWII: A seemingly feckless and selfish man finally takes up arms in the national struggle against the Nazis. Set in a POW camp, Polish inmates cling to their hopes for an eventual escape, encouraged by the legendary escape of one of their own.

A young industrial designer named Wit reluctantly returns to his family home to look after his gravely ill father. Upon entering the dark confines of a house he has not visited in six years, Wit once again finds himself exposed to the idiosyncratic pathologies of his father, sister, and aunt.

While visiting Warsaw, Hanka falls for a record-breaking bricklayer. She returns to the city to work at construction sites and prove that women can work as hard as men

The main character is a bookkeeper, 40, who lives a quiet, uninteresting life with her husband and son of school age. She realizes that soon she won't be needed much at home as the boy grows up and the relationship with her husband crumbles. It's only when an embezzlement is discovered at the office and she stands up to her management, that she realizes life has more to offer. She meets a well-off former classmate, married to an American. Then she meets Jacek and starts contemplating possibilities of a new start. She discovers love for the first time, but turns to old ways rather than to break loose.

A moral conflict between a young assistant and an associate professor arises during a university linguistics camp.

Shortly after World War 2 a young man arrives on the Recovered Territories and starts a romance with a young woman, all the while evading the ghosts of his past.

In occupied Poland in 1943, a wounded Jewish woman escapes a transport train and is discovered by villagers who, despite their sympathy, are unable to help her. Based on a short story by Zofia Nałkowska.

A wealthy German family is divided by the immorality of Nazi Germany, circa 1944. Former professional colleague, Joachim Peters, escapes from a Nazi concentration camp, and seeks refuge with his friends, the Sonnenbruchs. Torn between their duty as German citizens, and their greater humanitarian sensibilities, the family is divided in how to deal with Joachim's presence.

A Polish communist in prison breaks out at the start of the war, fight against the Germans and tries to find out who put him behind bars.

The documentary with commentary by Tadeusz Różewicz shows the everyday life of children a few years after the war and juxtaposes it with the children's experience of the "black seasons" - the loneliness, terror, hunger and misery of the Warsaw Ghetto.