Everyone knows the concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz. But, have you heard of a small Polish town named Oświęcim? A young team of filmmakers arrives at this site, where a bizarre memory conflict between Polish and Jewish remembrances on the Holocaust takes place. The filmmakers find themselves caught in the crossfire of the conflict's parties.
While the Jews want to defend their right of memory connected to the sites of the camps, the Poles just want a normal life. Is it really that simple? Is Auschwitz primarily a site of Polish suffering? Do Jewish Holocaust survivors have the right to dispel the Polish inhabitants of apartments on the camp's grounds by force? Or do the Poles have the right to locate their settlements and wheat fields above the ashes of tens of thousands of gassed and burned Jews?
At the center of the conflict is the town's mayor, who thinks himself of as a martyr, but also finds himself in a small private war with the local museum. To many of the town's residents, this museum seems to be an instrument of Jewish power. The conflict affects many levels of society, from the town's inhabitants and their visitors, to Vladimir Putin and the residents of a local homeless shelter.