In the 1890s, Father Adolf Daens goes to Aalst, a textile town where child labor is rife, pay and working conditions are horrible, the poor have no vote, and the Catholic church backs the petite bourgeoisie in oppressing workers. He writes a few columns for the Catholic paper, and soon workers are listening and the powerful are in an uproar. He's expelled from the Catholic party, so he starts the Christian Democrats and is elected to Parliament. After Rome disciplines him, he must choose between two callings, as priest and as champion of workers. In subplots, a courageous young woman falls in love with a socialist and survives a shop foreman's rape; children die; prelates play billiards.

March 1945. After crossing the Oder River, one of the Polish Army units heading for Berlin encounters resistance from German defensive formations. After a fierce exchange of fire, a doctor operates on seriously wounded soldiers. Private Józef Łopuch helps him in the field hospital and also serves as a barber. Łopuch, who despite sending over twenty letters has received no reply from his wife Sabina, composes another letter assuring his wife that although war is a nasty business, nothing can happen to him, as he was born in a forge...

A young couple decides to divorce.

First days of September 1939. The government decides to transport the Polish gold stored in the treasury of the National Bank of Poland out of the threatened Warsaw. A convoy is formed under the command of the man for special tasks, Major Bobruk. A string of trucks and city buses travel along crowded roads under relentless attack by aircraft. The convoy makes its way through Lublin to Romanian territory, where the gold will be reloaded onto a train. Prime Minister Calinescu, disregarding the threats of the Nazis, agrees to the transit of the precious bullion through his country. The evacuation of the gold is threatened all the time by a special German sabotage group under the command of Second Lieutenant Rudolf Lang.

A Polish RAF Officer returns to his homeland and finds himself torn between love for his friend's wife and illegal activities he gets himself involved in.

A story of a female production manager in a garment factory discovering that an award is being given to the wrong person on purpose. She stands up the injustice. Her best friend backs her up instead of the cultprit, the man she is living with. Later, the former production manager becomes a mayor in a resort town, where she in turn practices malfasance and is caught in the act by her friend.