German forces flee Auschwitz leaving sick prisoners behind; Soviet soldiers arrive on horseback and liberate the remaining camp survivors.

The survivors are bathed and treated by Soviet nurses at the main Auschwitz camp, and Levi is placed in an infirmary ward.

A young paralyzed child named Hurbinek, born and raised in the camp, dies in the infirmary ward without ever learning to speak.

Levi recovers from scarlet fever and leaves the ward, only to flee forced snow-clearing duties and join a Russian transport convoy.

Levi meets the Greek survivor Mordo Nahum on a Russian convoy and they travel together toward Cracow, buying and selling goods.

Levi arrives at the Katowice transit camp, reunites with the doctor Leonardo, and volunteers as an assistant in the camp infirmary.

Levi reunites with Cesare, a fellow Italian survivor and petty criminal he knew from Auschwitz, at the Katowice camp.

The defeat of Nazi Germany is announced and survivors, soldiers, and medical staff celebrate together in wild, delirious jubilation.

Levi falls gravely ill with pneumonia after standing in heavy rain during the victory celebrations at the Katowice camp.

After recovering, Levi and the Italian survivors board a chaotic, slow-moving repatriation train led by the mysterious Dr. Gottlieb.

The Italian survivors arrive at a remote camp near the village of Starye Dorogi and settle in for several months awaiting repatriation.

Italian survivors hunt horses from passing Red Army columns for meat; the Russians intervene only when a slaughterhouse is established.

Soviet Marshal Timoshenko visits the Starye Dorogi camp and personally assures the Italian survivors that departure is 'soon, very soon.'

Frustrated by the train's northward direction away from Italy, Cesare abandons the convoy and sets off for home entirely on his own.

Levi finally arrives in Turin, reunites with his surviving family, and finds himself repeatedly woken by haunting dreams of Auschwitz.

Primo Levi is liberated from Auschwitz when Soviet soldiers arrive and the remaining sick prisoners are taken into care. After recovering from scarlet fever in the infirmary, Levi escapes forced labor, joins a Russian convoy, and eventually settles at the Katowice transit camp, where he reunites with old companions and works at a makeshift clinic. The end of the war brings wild celebrations, but Levi falls ill again, and the promised repatriation proves trapped in Soviet bureaucratic confusion for months. The Italians are eventually sent to the remote camp at Starye Dorogi, where they forage, scheme, and wait for a departure that seems perpetually delayed. When the repatriation train finally moves, it takes a long, winding route through Eastern Europe before Levi at last reaches Turin and his surviving family, haunted still by the memory of the camp.

The core journey from liberation to homecoming.

Local Polish people arrive at Auschwitz to clear bodies; a child brings a cow that the starving survivors slaughter and eat.

A young Russian Jew named Yankel is appointed by Soviet soldiers to organize the surviving prisoners remaining in the camp.

A teenage prisoner named Henek, himself a former Kapo, patiently attempts to teach the paralyzed and speechless child Hurbinek to speak.

Mordo Nahum and Levi buy and sell shirts in the Cracow market; despite his mercenary nature, Mordo shares his food with Levi.

At Katowice, a self-appointed Italian representative named Rovi builds a small court of followers and pursues power entirely for its own sake.

An 18-year-old Russian named Gallina assists Levi with translations and bureaucratic tasks at the Katowice infirmary until the war ends and she goes home.

A Soviet general arrives to inspect the Katowice camp; the latrines are condemned as too filthy to enter and the general never appears.

Cesare falls for a Polish woman he cannot speak to and demands Levi translate for him, despite Levi not speaking Polish.

Leonardo and Cesare obtain drugs from the nearby clinic of the mysterious Dr. Gottlieb to treat Levi's serious pneumonia.

Leonardo and Levi formally hand over their Katowice infirmary; Levi is bemused to be asked to sign a Soviet letter of thanks.

Cesare and Levi spend their remaining Polish money in town and meet a German woman exiled for publicly criticizing Hitler after her husband was killed.

At Zhmerinka, Italian survivors watch as their fellow travelers offer bread to captured German prisoners passing through the railway depot.

During the repatriation train journey, Levi and Cesare discover an unused medical carriage and claim it for themselves for relative comfort.

The Italians are held at a camp in Slutsk alongside many nationalities, with each group taking turns cooking their own cuisine for everyone.

In Iasi, Levi and companions visit a small local Jewish community who share their meager resources in a principally symbolic gesture of solidarity.

From the earliest days of liberation, individual survivors and bystanders illuminate the chaos and unexpected humanity of the post-war world. Yankel organizes the camp's survivors, Henek tends to the speechless child Hurbinek, and Mordo Nahum teaches Levi about survival through relentless trade. At Katowice, the self-appointed leader Rovi holds court while young Gallina helps Levi navigate Soviet bureaucracy, and Cesare discovers an unlikely romance despite an impossible language barrier. The long wait for repatriation is punctuated by strange encounters: a Soviet general who never appears, a German shopkeeper exiled for criticizing Hitler, and captured German soldiers being quietly offered bread by the very people they once persecuted. The winding journey through Zhmerinka, Slutsk, and Iasi brings the Italians into contact with displaced communities of every kind before the train carries them on toward home.

The people and places that shaped the long journey home.

Levi, barely conscious with fever, watches the gates of Auschwitz recede as he is carted away from the camp.

Mordo Nahum criticizes Levi harshly for traveling without shoes, insisting that any man who has no shoes is a fool.

Working at the Katowice clinic alongside Leonardo, Levi recognizes how profoundly and irreversibly his time in Auschwitz has changed him.

Levi accompanies Cesare into the neighboring town and experiences the novel, liberating feeling of walking the streets as a free man.

Levi meets his Katowice dormitory companions: the axe-carrying Moor from Verona, the thief Ferrari, the rebel Trovati, and the rogue Cravero.

Before departing Katowice, Cravero sets off alone for Turin, carrying a letter from Levi addressed to Levi's mother.

Levi encounters Mordo Nahum for the last time at a Soviet camp and realizes that Mordo is now profiting from controlling sex workers.

Cesare returns to the Starye Dorogi camp despondent after giving away all his fish to a starving family in the woods rather than selling it.

Some Italian survivors attempt to leave Starye Dorogi on their own to reach Italy, but most return after finding travel across Europe impossible.

Levi recognizes a Starye Dorogi clinic patient as Flora, a woman he knew from the camps, now living in an abusive relationship with a cobbler.

A Soviet film truck visits Starye Dorogi and screens three films; the Italians are amused to watch themselves portrayed as wartime villains.

After the Italian theater show causes an uproar among the Russians, Soviet officers unexpectedly distribute long-owed compensation money to all the Italians.

Aboard the repatriation train, Levi realizes the convoy is traveling north rather than south, meaning the route home will be deeply indirect.

Levi briefly spots Gallina at a station during the journey; they exchange a few hurried, awkward words and never see each other again.

Passing through Germany, Levi confronts defeated German civilians but finds no acknowledgment of the camps, no apology, and no catharsis.

Levi's journey home is shaped as much by inner revelations as by outward events, beginning with the haunting sight of Auschwitz's gates fading behind him. His time with Mordo Nahum and Leonardo forces him to confront the psychological cost of Auschwitz, while small moments of freedom — walking a town's streets unhindered, sitting in a dormitory with eccentric companions — remind him what life once was. At Starye Dorogi, unexpected glimpses of humanity emerge: Cesare's shame at his own generosity, Flora's diminished life after the camps, and the brief absurd joy of watching propaganda films in the forest. The survivors' dependence on Soviet authority is crystallized by the surprise payment of long-owed compensation money, and the departure train's northward detour forces Levi to accept that nothing about this return will be simple or direct. By the time the train reaches Germany, Levi finds only broken, averted faces — no apology, no catharsis — and carries the unresolved weight of Auschwitz all the way back to Turin.