In 1933, Welsh journalist Gareth Jones travels to Ukraine, where he experiences the horrors of a famine. Everywhere he goes he meets henchmen of the Soviet secret service who are determined to prevent news about the catastrophe from getting out. Stalin’s forced collectivisation of agriculture has resulted in misery and ruin—the policy is tantamount to mass murder.

A Jewish boy separated from his family in the early days of WWII poses as a German orphan and is taken into the heart of the Nazi world as a 'war hero' and eventually becomes a Hitler Youth.