Remembrance

In 1944, Tomasz Limanowski, a captured member of the Polish resistance, operates inside a Nazi concentration camp, supervising labor and secretly photographing war crimes. He plans to smuggle the film negatives to expose the truth to the outside world. Meanwhile, Hannah Silberstein, a young German Jew in a separate work camp, becomes aware of him and a forbidden bond begins to form.

Each night Tomasz buys a bottle of vodka to secure moments alone with Hannah in the camp office, where they share bread stolen from the camp. Their brief nights sustain their fragile relationship amid the brutality around them. The escape plan lingers as a distant hope.

Tomasz hatches a plan to escape with help from fellow inmates. He obtains an SS uniform and forged paperwork to help pull off the ruse. The escape begins to feel plausibly close.

On the day of the escape, Tomasz dresses as an SS officer and leads Hannah toward the camp exit. A guard makes a crude remark as part of the moment, but Tomasz's cover holds and they slip into the woods. They begin a perilous journey to freedom.

The couple walks for weeks until they reach Tomasz's hometown and his mother Stefania's house. Stefania's scrutiny and prejudice threaten their bond, and Hannah miscarries that night. A car is ready to take Tomasz to Warsaw to deliver the smuggled photos.

Tomasz entrusts Hannah to Magdalena and a neighbor, Janusz, while he travels toward Warsaw to deliver the photos to his brother in the homeland army. He promises to return, but time drags on. Hannah remains hidden and anxious.

Stefania's hostility deepens as the family faces hardship, even attempting to have a German officer discover Hannah. Believing she must protect herself, Hannah hides and clings to a treasured photo of Tomasz kept by his mother. The emotional strain tests both women.

Czeslav returns from Warsaw, clinging to hope that Tomasz will come back. After a month, he and Hannah reckon that Tomasz must be dead, though Hannah refuses to accept it. The fragile household remains tense.

Russians arrive and take Czeslav and Magdalena to a Soviet work camp; Stefania and Hannah are left behind. Unable to stay, Hannah trudges through winter snow toward safety, nearly dying before a Red Cross van rescues her.

After the war, Tomasz returns to his mother’s home and learns that Czeslav and Magdalena have been sent to a work camp and that Hannah had died, a version his mother provides to keep him from the truth. The truth of their romance remains buried.

In 1976, in Brooklyn, Hannah Levine sees Tomasz being interviewed on television and instantly recognizes him as the man who saved her. The moment eclipses decades of memory and unspoken pain.

The initial phone call is cautious; they converse first in German and then switch to English as they realize they can communicate more freely. Hannah reveals that she had been pregnant, an admission that unsettles her and leads her to hang up before they can fully reunite.

The Red Cross tracks Tomasz down in Poland, reigniting the possibility of reunion. Both are overwhelmed by the prospect of finally meeting after so many years.

Hannah travels to Poland to visit Tomasz, who now has a grown daughter and lives separated from his wife. The film closes with them seeing each other as Tomasz arrives to pick her up after she steps off the bus.