Based on a true story: When fascism exploits Lithuanian vulnerability following Soviet occupation, six young resistance fighters are conscripted by invading Nazi forces, sparking a daring escape across Europe to join the Allies—but for the sole survivor, victory brings the crushing realization that the Iron Curtain has forever separated him from the homeland and family he was fighting to save.

SYNOPSIS:

In 1939 Lithuania, six young men—their military aspirations crushed when the Soviet Union annexes their homeland—form a secret resistance cell in the white birch forests outside Vilnius. Led by JONAS BARANAUSKAS, a skilled mechanic with a young wife and newborn son, they witness their neighbor's disappearance after he joins what remains of the Lithuanian military. Operating from their hidden forest sanctuary, each uses his unique talents to undermine Soviet occupation while maintaining the façade of cooperation.

When Operation Barbarossa brings German forces to Lithuania in 1941, initial hopes for liberation quickly fade as Nazi brutality replaces Soviet oppression. The friends watch in horror as Jewish Lithuanians are marched to the Vilna Ghetto, while propaganda portrays Germans as saviors. By 1943, facing forced conscription into German military service, they execute a daring plan: over months, Jonas—assigned as chauffeur to a German general—and his friends siphon small amounts of fuel and secretly plan an escape route across occupied Europe.