Hungarian physicist Leo Szilard leaves Europe, eventually arriving in the United States. With the help of Einstein, he persuades the government to build an atomic bomb. The project is given to no-nonsense Gen. Leslie Groves who selects physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer to head the Los Alamos Laboratory in New Mexico, where the bomb is built. As World War II draws to a close, Szilard has second thoughts about atomic weapons, and policy makers debate how and when to use the bomb.

This film is about the Jewish girl Sara and the ruin of her family during World War II. Her parents have to live in the Jewish ghetto in Amsterdam, but later they are arrested and deported. Sara decides to flee with her brother and his girlfriend to Palestine. Based on the book by Marga Minco.