[1][2] A Generation is set in Wola, a working-class section of Warsaw, in 1942 and tells the stories of two young men at odds with the German occupation of Poland.

After a friend is killed attempting to heist coal from a German supply train, he finds work as an apprentice at a furniture workshop, where he becomes involved in an underground communist resistance cell.

An outsider, Jasio Krone (Tadeusz Janczar), the temperamental son of an elderly veteran, is initially reluctant to join the struggle but finally commits himself, running relief operations in the Jewish ghetto during the uprising there.

"[12][13] Bohdan Czeszko’s autobiographical novel Pokolenie, on which the film is based, concerns his activity in the armed resistance associated with the communist Polish Workers' Party (PPR) against Nazi occupation forces during World War II.

However, they faced the difficulty of having to overcome both the Stalinist and nationalist ideological pressures of their time...In line with these convictions, Wajda made his directing debut with Generation, about young Communist partisans in Nazi-occupied Warsaw.

He adds: Neither one side or the other [among film critics] were able to see beyond the moods of the moment and recognize the abiding values of A Generation: the depth of the human concern and the freshness and power with which it is communicated.