And in That Castle

A random inspection of prisoners´ possessions is being carried out in a prison camp. Sixty-year-old Buran, sentenced for helping his son escape across the border, was keeping an undisclosed photograph of his family which was able to hide and protect for six years; but now it has been discovered and the guard tears the picture to pieces. Buran blames his co-prisoner Honzis, criminal and pimp, for informing on him. The third man in the cell, Frajher, is indifferent to everything, and thus also to the silent and tenacious fight between the two men. In the public room, divided by a wire net, prisoners are seated at one side and their visitors at the other. One of the visitors is Honzis´ girlfriend and, as follows from their conversation, she is a prostitute. Buran is shocked: instead of the daughter he had expected, he is visited by his little granddaughter and her uncle – Buran´s only son who, after the amnesty for refugees, returned to Czechoslovakia. The old man has perceived that his sentence is the price of a better future of his son. It is only the presence of the animated and talkative granddaughter that keeps him from despair. His son does not seem to grasp this at all. Buran, as a political prisoner, has no hope of his sentence being remitted, although the reason for the sentence had long passed. Frajher, too, eventually gets a visit – a proud and elegant lady. speaking by turns in Czech and German, who reminds him of their family estate and the wealth she had had to leave behind in Czechoslovakia. It is his sister, promising Frajher a bright future in Germany where she resides, when he is released after the expected amnesty. This, for a moment, breaks through Frajher´s lethargy. A sketchy retrospective shows us Frajher in the uniform of a Nazi officer shooting at bound civilians. Visiting time at the prison is over...