Joseph Balicki lives in Warsaw, Poland with his Swiss wife, Margrit, and their three children, 13-year-old Ruth, 11-year-old Edek, and 3-year-old Bronia. Though headmaster of a primary school, the Nazis arrest him when he turns a portrait of Adolf Hitler in a classroom to face the wall.

Joseph is imprisoned in the Zakyna camp in South Poland in 1940. The men live in overcrowded barracks and are close to starving, being fed only potato and cabbage soup. Many try to escape, but most are caught or die of exposure in the mountains. Nonetheless, Joseph is determined to escape and return to his family, whom he has not seen for over two years. He intentionally gets himself shut in “the cooler,” a small cell for misbehaving inmates.

He shoots a guard in the forehead with a stone fired from a catapult made from the elastic sides of his boots and pine twigs, knocking the guard unconscious, and then manages to reach the keys that have fallen from his uniform coat. Joseph changes clothes with the guard and escapes the camp disguised as a Nazi soldier.