Paris, today. Victor, forty years old, stands alone in silence before a large wall we sense is covered with engraved names: a memorial to the deported Jews.
Paris, 1987. While the trial of Klaus Barbie, the former French Gestapo chief, is broadcast live on television, we discover Victor surrounded by documents in which he tries to discover the truth about his family's past.
Meanwhile, his mother Rivka goes about preparing a meal. We hear, quite distinctly, the beginning of the same trial, a survivor's testimony. During dinner, Victor tries to get his mother to speak about the past, but she refuses. She pretends to not hear, or changes the conversation; she wants her life to finish peacefully, surrounded by objects, memories and her children and grandchildren. Her attitude only makes Victor more insistent. His wife Françoise will support him in his struggle to recover his family's past.
