A Polish Jew imprisoned in a Russian gulag, bargains for his son’s life agreeing to lead a special unit of POW’s parachuting behind enemy lines liberating Nazi death camps.

SYNOPSIS:

ALEXANDER KAMEN (now 18), lied about his age to enter Poland’s Army of the 2nd Republic. After six months basic training he's returning home to Zamość on a troop train. His best friend and fellow soldier BOGDON, is getting married the next day, and Alex has agreed to be his best man’. Alex spends the day at home reuniting with family; and, the evening with his childhood sweetheart CAROLINA (17). The wedding is taking place on a shallow hilltop of Bogdon’s parent’s farmhouse set in an apple orchard just outside town. Following the marriage, Alex and Carolina stroll hand-in-hand through the orchard. Seeking the right moment to ask Carolina for her hand, Alex plucks an apple from a tree, as they seat themselves in its shade. He polishes it to a high gloss on his shirt and presents Carolina with a choice. In one hand he holds the apple, in the other an engagement ring. Surprised she quickly accepts the ring placing it on her finger, as Alex takes a bite from the apple. Alex watches as she struggles to clear the knuckle on her ring finger. He apologizes, and offers to take it back and resize it, but she refuses having successfully seated it. INCITING INCIDENT They sit in the shade faintly hearing the villagers celebrating above. Suddenly a droning sound is heard. The drone becomes louder until the sky is blackened with bombers of the German Luftwaffe. Bombs begin falling from the sky, exploding all around them and the village nearby. Alex grabs Carolina diving into an irrigation ditch covering her body. Amid the celebration pandemonium erupts. When the attack has ended they emerge from the ditch to see dead bodies lying about. Amid the carnage Alex spots Bogdon who holds his dying bride in his arms. Alex and his fellow soldiers gather in the towns square where they are joined by leading community and military leaders, one his commanding officer during basic training. They say farewell to loved ones and prepare to confront the onslaught of the German army. But quickly find they’re no match for the invaders. Those who haven’t either been killed or captured form an underground band of guerilla fighters. The Soviet army has delayed their invasion of Eastern Poland by a month, until after the Nazi’s had denounced their support for Japan against Russia in the East. The guerillas are now fighting, both the Germans and Russians, hearing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of non-aggression, between the two invading forces and their predetermined division of Poland. Constantly on the run and hungry, the guerrilla force is hunted while growing weaker by the day. After trying to escape from a firefight with the Russians they are captured and taken prisoners of war; and shipped off to Siberia by rail where they are interned in a forced labor camp (or, gulag). Arriving at the gulag the prisoners are assembled by an overbearing aggressive man shouting directions. A finely dressed officer appears climbing a raised platform and declares he is DMITRI YURKOV, a Colonel in the GRU. He then introduces the overbearing man, as his Captain of the Guards, IVAN KHABALOV, and adding, “You will come to know him as ‘Ivan the Terrible’, a man you don’t want to cross.” Col. Yurkov lays-out the rules by which they involuntarily have become slave laborers of the Soviet Union. He then asks, “Are their any educated or learned among you, step forward?” A few step forward hoping for better treatment only to be shot on the spot. As gulag living became routine they labor 12 hours days, surviving on a barely enough to stay alive. In the dead of winter a desperate situation arises when the central heating system fails. A call goes out for anyone who can fix the problem. Bogdon speaks-up, “Alex may be able to solve the problem?” Alex is taken to the furnace building and asked, if he can repair the system? With an inquisitive nature and some training as an engineer he applies his skills and solves the camp’s heating problems. Col. Yurkov takes a liking to Alex, now aware of his abilities, to keep the gulag running smoothly meeting its quotas. Thereafter, whenever problems arose Alex was called upon; and became known as ‘The Fix’it Man’. Showing his appreciation Col. Yurkov ordered better food and clothing be provided everyone in his barracks. Thankful, the barracks could now refrain from catching, cooking and eating of rodents to supplement their inadequate diet. A disgruntled Ivan views Alex as a usurper of his authority and despises the attention he receives from Col. Yurkov. One day while assembled a group of women prisoners’ arrive in camp. Carrying their knapsacks they’re paraded across the grounds in front of the men, when Alex noticed his fiancée Christina among them, and couldn’t help but notice she is pregnant. Waiting for the opportune moment he tells Col. Yurkov, he had seen his fiancée enter the camp this morning, and asks his permission to visit with her. Their reunion is an unexpected twist of fait that brought the lovers together once again. Carolina is overjoyed while suffering from her pregnancy, poor health, and mental anguish. Col. Yurkov, quickly see’s a need to protect his interests by insuring the well-being of his valuable fix’it man. He shows his appreciation by awarding him with a rustic cabin on the grounds and the company of his fiancée to reside with him. Later he grants Alex his request to marry Carolina. The wedding takes place in the labor camp with Bogdon acting as his ‘best man’. Shortly thereafter Carolina gives birth to a boy child they named Leonid. After birth Carolina’s frail body continues to deteriorate finally giving way to death. Col. Yurkov grants Alex leave from the camp to bury her outside. Using a wheelbarrow for transport he wheels her frozen body several miles finally entering a forest. He picks a suitable spot and begins to dig in the frozen tundra with a broken branch and his hands. He scraps-out a shallow grave placing her body at rest. He then notices the ring finger of her left hand had been severed. He sits over the mound of earth, as the hours pass reflecting back on their childhood, as friends and then lovers. Alex wept. Alex is now faced with trying to provide for the baby while working 12-hour days. The Captain of the Guards, Ivan laughs at the situation saying, “the baby is going to die and there is nothing you can do for him.” Alex bites his tongue. Not to be deterred he rigs-up a contraption where the baby can suck from a tube a mixture of crushed bread and milk. The baby is left alone for hours while Alex labors, only to return and face the cleaning-up of the expected mess. Against overwhelming odds the baby Leonid survives and became a child. On June 22, 1941, Operation Barbarossa begins with Hitler’s invasion of Russia. Germany is now at war with Russia and the Allied forces. Sporadic clashes between Germans and Russian forces are now taking place within Poland. On June 6, 1944, the Allied forces succeed in the invasion of France at Normandy. Attacked on all fronts, the German armies begin to weaken, as they retreat back to the fatherland. Allied intelligence has learned that orders have been issued to commands of the death camps to begin extermination of prisoners before vacating. In Moscow at the highest level it was decided to create a special unit comprised of Polish POW’s, who knew the countryside and language passing themselves off as peasants. The Soviets plan to train volunteer prisoners as paratroopers jumping behind enemy lines and liberating Nazi death camps. Leonid was now five, and Alex was forced to make a decision. He either remained in the labor camp, or joined the special unit. The unit was conceived and planned by Col. Yurkov, under GRU control. Col. Yurkov promises Alex that if he joined the unit, Leonid would become property of the state and his future assured. He would be sent to one of many villages in Russia to work as child labor assembling products of war; and, eventually, he would be educated and trained as a loyal member of the military. His decision made, Alex prepared to depart for paratrooper training. The night before departing Alex takes a Polish coin and cuts it in-half, thereby, creating two parts of the same puzzle. He welds each half to a heavy chain placing one around Leonid’s neck and the other around his welding the shortened chains that did not allow for removal, in place. With a heavy heart he departs knowing that if he ever sees his son again he could be identified. Having finished their training Alex was appointed to lead the unit under command of Col. Yurkov; and, to insure his control over the Poles he assigned two of his GRU men to jump with the group all dressed as peasants. Their first mission is a success liberating a death camp and holding it until advancing forces arrived. The only causalities were the two accompanying GRU members. Col. Yurkov has his suspicions they were murdered, but accepts the success of the mission of higher value. His solution, no Russian’s would accompany the Poles on future missions. In the latter months of the war the special paratrooper unit made numerous jumps behind enemy lines liberating many Nazi death camps throughout Poland and saving hundreds of lives. As the American ground forces advanced into Poland from the West nearing the last of the camps to be liberated, a final mission was ordered. Alex and his band of Polish paratroopers prepared for what may be their last mission weighed their opportunities for escape. It was during this final mission when the first ground forces to arrive were Americans’ and, the entire unit defected to the West, providing intelligence of their operations. When a camp was liberated each member was assigned responsibility for several prisoners. One was a pretty Polish woman named Maria. Alex and Maria had become lovers and married. Maria had given birth to a girl, and was pregnant when they finally received permission to immigrate to Sweden, giving birth to their second daughter in Stockholm. Their family continued to grow when she gave birth to their son James. Thereafter, the family moved to the Province of Skane settling in Kristianstad, where Alex opened a “Fix It Shop” that his son Jim still operates today. Alex never stopped trying to locate Leonid, a task that became more difficult as the “iron curtain” descended across Europe. His only hope of finding him rested with the American Red Cross. A woman he had befriended led groups granted entry into villages in the Eastern block to confirm the welfare of children who’d become victims of the war. Many of the towns she visited were not shown on maps, being secret locations where child labor was used in the assembly of goods of war. While on one of these missions she saw a young child of about six. Around his neck was a partial coin attached to a chain, just as Alex had described. She reports back to Alex of locating his son Leonid, but would remain in the Eastern block until after the fall of communism in 1982. Leonid had become an officer in the Soviet military, just as Col. Yurkov had promised. After the collapse of the USSR, and opening-up of Eastern Europe to the West, father and son were once again reunited after 47 years, when Leonid visited with his family in Kristianstad, Sweden. Alex’s final struggle had come to an end and he died a natural death in April 2000, and rests in peace within a Jewish cemetery in Malmo, Sweden. THE END