 ABRAM SEROVSKY, a Holocaust survivor, confronts his father s death while watching a TV news report where the police drag an ex-guard from Auschwitz, FRITZ HEINRICH, to jail. RAYMOND WOODS, a young African American journalist and ex-convict interviews Abram as he recovers from a near-fatal heart attack. An unlikely friendship develops between them and Ray divulges his own violent history with his father, SARGE. Together, the two men explore how the psychological imprisonment of painful memories can be just as suffocating as the physical traumas of any concentration camp or 12-by-12 cell. Later, Abram confronts Heinrich at the trial and begins to recount the circumstances of his father s death. Heinrich cries out that Abram shot his father, not him. Abram suffers a final heart attack and dies on the witness stand. His last words in German are "Forgive me, father." Stunned, Ray reflects on his own choices in life and returns home to make amends with his father.