The movie opens with introducing Zev Guttman (Christopher Plummer). He lives in a nursing home, where he and his friend Max Rosenbaum (Martin Landau) have made a pact. They are both holocaust survivors and since Max is too weak to leave the home, Zev will track down and kill the man they hold responsible for mudering their families in Auschwitz. This man is Rudy Kurlander.