Freed Polish soldiers are trapped in a small town in Germany during the last days of World War II. After a doctor's daughter is raped by a concentration camp worker, the Poles allow her and her father to stay in the house that is their temporary quarters. While waiting to be repatriated, the war-weary group is forced to fight some German soldiers who invade the town. The war brings out conflicting emotions of the Poles who find themselves trapped in the house and once again under fire from the enemy.

The former owner, a German, shows up on a farm belonging to the Poles settled there.

A young academy soldier, Maciek Chelmicki, is ordered to shoot the secretary of the KW PPR. A coincidence causes him to kill someone else. Meeting face to face with his victim, he gets a shock. He faces the necessity of repeating the assassination. He meets Krystyna, a girl working as a barmaid in the restaurant of the "Monopol" hotel. His affection for her makes him even more aware of the senselessness of killing at the end of the war. Loyalty to the oath he took, and thus the obligation to obey the order, tips the scales.

During World War 2 Polish skiers take up a fight against the Germans and become couriers, delivering mail to Budapest.

An actress travels from Warsaw to Paris and during the trip reflects on the last few years of her life. It goes back to the German occupation and her hiding of a fellow actor who has supposedly killed a collaborator.

Przybora, an engineer, undertakes the construction of a modern mine. His fiancée supports him in the hardships of his work.

In the last days of World War 2, people of various ethnic background meet in a Polish military hospital in a small German town, whereas a Nazi SS division hides in the local forests and tries to move westwards.

A peasant girl is abandoned by her fiancé after she has talked her father into giving her his land as a dowry.

A day in the life of an alcoholic. With the help of his girlfriend Krysia, Kuba attempts to regain control of his life.

A tale of a young impoverished nobleman, who with his uncle returns from a war against the order of the Teutonic Knights in Lithuania. He falls in love with a beautiful woman and pledges an oath to bring her "three trophies" from the Teutonic Knights.