This film tells a love story, but at the same time one of the most spectacular escapes in the history of the concentration camp Auschwitz.

Dressed like an SS-officer a Polish man saves a Jewish woman. After this event they lose each other and are convinced the other would be dead for a long time.

On 19 January 1943 the Jewish Cyla Cybulska is brought to Auschwitz. Her whole family is killed with gas. While she is working in a silo she meets the Polish Jurek Bielecki, who has been in Auschwitz since the first transport in June 1940 and works in the office. They fall in love with each other.
To save Cyla, Jurek gets a SS-uniform and takes Cyla out of the camp to a pretended inquisition on 21 July 1944.
They succeed, but the two are seperated and left with the conviction the other was dead.
Cyla marries and emigrates to New York. Jurek also marries, moves to Nowy Targ and becomes father of three children.
In 1983 the servant girl of Cyla watches an interview with a man on TV telling Cyla's story. This man is Jurek Bielecki.
The two meet 39 years after Auschwitz.