Mel Mermelstein, a Holocaust survivor living in 1980s California, is challenged by a neo-Nazi group after giving several speeches on his life and death struggle in the World War II death camp of Auschwitz. The "Institute for Historical Review", as the neo-Nazi group is called, offers a fifty thousand dollar reward if Mermelstein can actually prove that his Holocaust tale is true. When the group does not live up to their end of the bargain, however, Mermelstein sues the I.H.R. and wins the first U.S. court decision stating that the occurrence of the Jewish Holocaust is an established fact of history.