The crusty hero, Habryka, is an old miner who has won many worker medals and is now retired with his youngest son and latter's family living with him. To build new apartment buildings, the old houses are being bought out, the residents given apartments in the new houses, and being cleared away. But Habryka refuses to sell.
The authorities in favor of the Nazis are trying to restore order in a small town in Silesia. Their actions are fiercely resisted by a small group of residents.
With the Nazi occupation of Poland, several children in a village there become very unhappy and then get in deep trouble for a drawing of the Nazi Führer hanged from a tree.
