The Fifth Horseman Is Fear

It is the year 1941 in Prague. The city has been invaded by the German occupying forces. A Jewish doctor, senior lecturer Armin Braun, is not allowed to run his medical practice and works as a warehouseman in a synagogue in which the property confiscated in Jewish apartments are stored. Every night, Braun returns to his scant flat in the garret of a block of flats. His neighbours avoid him from fear. One night, however, Braun is asked for help by his neighbour Šidlák, who has hidden a severely wounded man in his apartment - a man called Pánek, a member of the anti-Fascist resistance movement. Braun first refuses to treat the wounded man, but eventually agrees to operate on him under primitive conditions and removes the bullet from his body. But the patient needs morphine. To get it, Braun meets his former colleague Wiener, a doctor working in a mental home, in a bar and is appalled that some people are trying to enjoy themselves even in the time of a mortal danger. Eventually, Braun succeeds in getting the medicine from the hospital. That, however, does not put his suffering to an end. The Gestapo shows up, beating on the gate of the house. Braun carries Pánek into his apartment. The neighbours, the informer Fanta among them, sense the presence of the hunted man in the house, but the Gestapo does not find anybody. The next day, Šidlák removes the resistance fighter to a safe place. But Fanta has reported on Braun in the meantime, and the Gestapo returns. The desperate doctor confesses that he has treated an unknown man, and then swallows a vial of poison. The Gestapo then teaches the neighbours a lesson, forcing them to pass by the corpse of the brave doctor lying on the staircase. (official distributor synopsis)