Four men await trial in a Hungarian prison immediately after the war. The People's Court is to hear charges of their having perpetrated a massacre. During three days of January, 1942, in an area of Yugoslavia populated by Serbs, Hungarians, and Jews, three thousand people were killed by members of the local Hungarian garrison in a hunt for partisans. Many were Hungarians.

The film does not reconstruct historic events, but evokes them from the memories, conversations and thoughts of three former officers and a private soldier. Four points of view contribute to a single blind involvement. By returning again and again to its focal point in a bleak, white setting, the film relentlessly explores how ordinary men can be induced to commit a collective atrocity.