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Logline:

 A principled German soldier in occupied Poland closes a bridge to an SS officer and his men, determined on liquidating a Jewish ghetto, and following this he moves many Jews to he sanctuary of an army barracks.

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Synopsis:

 

In 1942, in Przemysl, Poland a Wehrmacht Army officer Albert Battel faced SS trucks heading to deport hundreds of Jews from the local ghetto. He blocked the bridge with armed soldiers and said simply: Battle a lawyer by trade and a dutiful army man suddenly snapped and he shouted out "Not today." What happened next changed everything. Battel had been watching the SS convoy approach. Truck after truck, engines growling, heading straight for the ghetto. SS commander SS-Obersturmführer Josef Schwammberger, a brute of a man and a confirmed anti-Semite and Nazi thug demanded to be allowed to pass. Battel and his soldiers stood with him, but neither he nor they budged an inch. Imagine that moment, German soldiers pointing rifles at other German soldiers. The SS commander had no choice. He ordered his trucks to turn around and leave the bridge, which was the only way to reach the overflowing ghetto. However, Battel wasn't finished. He hurried to the ghetto and started telling people to get in the trucks he had with him. People were sceptical at first but he convinced them that this was a mercy mission to save them. He loaded dozens of people into Wehrmacht vehicles. He drove them to the Wehrmacht barracks. Fed them. Posted guards to protect them. For hours, he moved Jewish families out of that ghetto under the cover of military necessity. Every minute, he could have been shot for treason. Every decision could have been his last. But. By nightfall, dozens of people who should have been on death trains were sleeping in German army beds instead. What would the consequences be? Especially as Himmler himself was informed of this inexcusable fraternization with Jews.