She was born in Poland and moved to Australia when she was nine. Finding herself at loose ends after the death of her taciturn mother, she accepts an invitation to help exhume a mass grave in Poland. The Jews of the town were burned to death in this barn in 1941. Local lore says that the Nazis did it but rumors persist that it was the Polish people who committed the crime. The investigation is supposed to find out the truth but is running against public opinion in this very conservative and nationalistic part of Poland.