Poland, during World War II. Martha Weiss, a Jewish woman, arrives at the Auschwitz extermination camp with her family. She is assigned the role of interpreter, but her loved ones are much less fortunate.
The struggle between poor villagers, who are eager to build a co-operative mill and a cultural centre, and the village wealthy men - the miller and the kulaks - who are desperate to stop the farmers.
A film dedicated to miners, showing the hardship and risk of working in a mine. Devoid of verbal commentary, it draws its impact from the form: suggestive cinematography close to the pre-war avant-garde, dynamic editing closely linked to music. Brzozowska was accused of formalism at the 1949 Congress of Filmmakers in Wisła, where socialist realism was proclaimed.
