Together with his mother (Monika Kwiatskowska) and his little brother, Stefan (Józef Pawlowski) lives in a small apartment in German-occupied Warsaw. He has a job and earns the family money. But that is over when he helps a friend who is fighting for the resistance with a weapons transport and is exposed in the process. As a consequence, he is fired and finds himself unemployed. Out of anger and despair, he eventually joins the resistance, which his mother does not like at all. When the Warsaw Uprising is sparked, Stefan fights with his friends in the city center against the Wehrmacht. Standing side by side with him is Ala (Zofia Wichlacz), a pretty girl who has fallen in love with him. The Red Army approaches from the east, but in Warsaw Stefan, Ala and their comrades go through a hell of blood and violence, facing a superior force.