In 1944, Anna, a Jewish prisoner in a concentration camp, and Tomasz, her Polish prisoner-of-war lover, manage a harrowing escape from the camp. She takes refuge with Tomasz's sister-in-law, a Polish partisan, while he goes in search of his brother. In the ensuing chaos at the end of the war, the two are separated, each believing that the other is dead until 30 years later when Hannah, happily married and a mother in New York, believes she has seen Tomasz being interviewed on television about his war experiences and renews her search for him.