Set during the final, desperate months of World War II in Hungary, Walking with the Enemy tells the harrowing story of Elek Cohen, a young Jewish man who lives in constant fear under the expanding Nazi occupation. As anti‑Semitic laws increasingly threaten Jewish existence in Budapest, Elek and his friend Ferenc are forced into the Hungarian labor service—an arduous, dehumanizing assignment where those who falter or fall ill are mercilessly killed.
After staging a daring escape, Elek returns home only to discover that his family has vanished and his home ransacked. The only clue they left behind are falsified baptismal certificates hidden in a family photograph—proof that someone tried to protect them. With each passing day, the threat grows: Regent Horthy is overthrown, replaced by the fascist Arrow Cross Party, who ally with the Nazis and intensify the hunt for Jews.
Driven by loss and a fierce will to rescue lives, Elek and Ferenc join forces with a resistance effort led in part by Swiss diplomat Carl Lutz at the Glass House. Elek—a fluent German speaker—takes the extraordinary risk of donning stolen SS uniforms. Posing as officers, they “round up” Jewish families only to divert them to safe houses under Swiss protection, or to local convents, orchestrating daring escapes under enemy noses.
Amid the relentless danger, Elek’s resolve is tested further when he rescues his love, Hannah, from Nazi violence. He kills the would-be perpetrators to protect her, then buries their bodies before assuming their identities. Their collaboration allows Elek to save countless lives, but the charade becomes ever more dangerous as the war reaches its boiling point.
Their efforts culminate during the brutal Siege of Budapest, when Soviet forces finally break the Nazi hold. Yet even in this moment of upheaval, tragedy strikes: Elek is shot by an SS lieutenant after his son inadvertently reveals his identity during a group of detained Jews. The German commander, exasperated by the lieutenant’s defiance, kills him—an act of unexpected mercy that saves Elek.
The film concludes with a poignant leap to 1958 in New York City, where Elek’s son celebrates his own adopted son’s wedding—a quiet testament to survival, legacy, and the long arc toward healing
