Late in 1939, a young doctor Stefan arrives at a closed psychiatric hospital to take up a post, carrying humanitarian impulses that are admirable but not fully formed. He is welcomed by the hospital director, and quickly comes under the scrutiny of the cynical Dr. Rygier Zbigniew Zapasiewicz, whose pro-Nazi views are not concealed. Stefan disapproves of Rygier’s humiliating and sometimes brutal experimental methods, including electroconvulsive therapy. The doctor also witnesses a disturbing mix of approaches among his colleagues: Dr. Kauters [Henryk Bista] favors only surgical remedies, while Dr. Marglewski [Wojciech Pszoniak] treats mental illness as if it were mere possession. The atmosphere is tense, clinical, and morally fraught, as lives hang in the balance between science, power, and mercy.
Nosilewska [Ewa Dałkowska] secretly confesses to Stefan that she fled from Austria after it was occupied, hinting at the broader human costs surrounding the hospital under occupation. Meanwhile, an SS invasion changes the room’s dynamics: Thiesdorf, an SS officer [Klaus Piontek], announces the hospital’s liquidation, triggering a range of responses among the staff. Stefan’s growing defiance against the established order contrasts with Pajączkowski’s caution, since Rygier casts doubt on Stefan’s credibility by insinuating a “Masonic” scientific background before the war. The director emphasizes that safeguarding patients must take precedence over any impulse to show them mercy. Into this volatile mix enters the troubled writer Sekułowski, a drug addict who seeks refuge in the hospital and bitterly challenges Stefan’s level of life experience. The hospital’s atmosphere deepens with personal histories: Andrzej Nowacki [Jerzy Binczycki], a brain cancer patient, becomes a focal point of concern, while the staff’s fragile confidence in medical authority is tempered by the blunt realism of these unfolding events.
The moment of liquidation finally arrives. The director cannot obtain consent from Rygier, Kauters, and Marglewski to act spontaneously to save patients, and only Stefan stands with him, distributing the remaining medicines to those in need and, at Sekułowski’s urging, adding cyanide to his drink while the files are burned. When German forces enter, the hospital’s staff are seized and many are arrested. Nosilewska is detained as a Jew, and Pajączkowski accepts a grim fate beside her. Sekułowski himself dies by suicide to resist arrest, leaving a stark imprint of defiance. The SS orderly conducts the group of staff and patients from the building to their execution, and, as the woods fall silent, Stefan hides in the fog and makes a desperate bid to rescue a young boy concealed beneath hospital gowns. The child dies in his arms, and, as an SS patrol moves through the forest, Stefan vanishes, dissolving into the fog while the execution squad carries out its grim task and buries the victims.
