On September 1, 1939, the Germans invade Poland. At that time, many years after the death of his mother and several years after the death of his elder brother, a young Karol Wojtyla makes his home in Krakow with his ailing father. Karol had been studying at the university and, though it is dangerous and forbidden under Nazi occupation, he continues with actor friends to put on plays as a means of preserving and saluting their Polish culture.