On the Side of Angels explores the ultimate human challenge to do "the right thing" despite great personal danger. What motivates a person like Francisca Halamajowa to display courage and compassion toward Jews in a climate of fear and terror, when so many others willingly turned in their Jewish neighbors? What moral choices and dilemmas did survival entail for those fortunate few who lived through the war? What role did personal attitude play in the fate of these families? And what purpose does the written word serve in times of unprecedented tragedy?
Only very few Jews kept diaries during the war, and among them, even fewer survived to see and chronicle the defeat of the Nazis. As such, Moshe Maltz's diary, which provides the basis for this film, is a unique historical document. On the Side of Angels also distinguishes itself among Holocaust documentaries in that it focuses not only on how Holocaust survivors and their children confront their past, but also on how descendants of "righteous gentiles" view their legacy – an issue rarely, if ever, explored in Holocaust literature and film.
On the Side of Angels will use the entries in Maltz's diary as a timeline to explore the dramatic personal events experienced by the Maltz and Halamajowa families and their neighbors between the fall of 1939 and summer of 1945, in and around Sokal, Poland. Using the written and oral testimonies of those who were there and their descendents, the film will provide new details about what befell the Jewish communities of Eastern Galicia during the Holocaust, as it reawakens long–suppressed memories of traumatic events and decisions that affected a few families caught up in this great tragedy.