A Jewish pawnbroker, victim of Nazi persecution, loses all faith in his fellow man until he realizes too late the tragedy of his actions.

In a poor neighborhood of New York, the bitter and lonely Jewish pawnbroker Sol Nazerman is a survivor from Auschwitz that has no emotions or feelings. Sol lost his dearest family and friends in the war and his faith in God and belief in mankind. Now he only cares for money and is haunted by daydreams, actually flashbacks from the period of the concentration camp. Sol's assistant is the ambitious Latino Jesus Ortiz, who wants to learn with Sol how to run a business of his own. When Sol realizes that the obscure laundry business he has with the powerful gangster Rodriguez comes also from brothels, Sol recalls the fate of his beloved wife in the concentration camp and has a nervous breakdown. His attitude leads Jesus Ortiz to tragedy and Sol finds a way to cry.—Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Sol Nazerman manages a pawnshop in Harlem, which provides him enough money to support comfortably his sister-in-law's family on Long Island and the widow of an old colleague. He is an emotionless and direct man, which makes him effective, from an economic perspective, in negotiating with his largely desperate customers as he has no feeling about their plight. Most of his pawnshop acquaintances are unaware that his abrupt and detached demeanor is a result of what he witnessed as a Jewish concentration camp inhabitant during WWII, those incidents witnessed including the rape of his wife and the murder of his family by their Nazi captors. What happens on the streets of Harlem often reminds him of incidents at the concentration camp, he shutting off his feelings from what he now sees to survive emotionally. Before the war, he was a professor, a term which he now views with disdain. He has just hired a young man named Jesus Ortiz to work in the shop. Jesus, who has led a life of petty crime up until now, sees this job and his association with Sol, who he sees not only as a boss but a friend and mentor, as his first step in turning over a new leaf. One person who suspects what Sol has gone through is the new welfare worker in the neighborhood, Marilyn Birchfield, who has her own reasons for trying to break through his defenses. His life takes a turn when he discovers the true nature of the pawnshop owner, Rodriguez, which, although a negative in the issue itself, at least allows him to feel again for the first time since the war. The question becomes what he is going to do about it, especially in relation to Miss Birchfield and Jesus.—Huggo

Sol Nazerman is a pawnbroker in a run down part of New York City near 126th St. The locals for the most part get loans of a dollar or two for small items and Sol makes most of his money laundering cash for a local gangster, Rodriguez. As an important anniversary approaches, Sol begins to have flashbacks to the time he and his family were arrested by the Nazis and put in a concentration camp. Life in the neighborhood is rough with small-time hoods stealing goods and then pawning them. When they learn of the cash payments Sol receives from Rodriguez, they decide to rob him. As his flashbacks bring him ever more grief, Sol rebels.—garykmcd

This was one of the first films to deal with the effects of Nazi Germany's concentration camps on their survivors. Sol Nazerman, operator of a pawn shop, and a concentration camp survivor faces a horrid internal conflict. Being engulfed in a New York ghetto Environment, Sol suffers flashbacks. The flashbacks juxtapose concentration camp treatment with ghetto neighborhood treatment. Although, the flashbacks suffer several historical inaccuracies, the point is well made. His internal conflicts between submitting to the same injustices he and his family suffered or resisting the injustice a peak at the end of the film—Alexander Nicolas <[email protected]>