 During the Jewish Holocaust of the Second World War, as part of the genocidal "Final Solution", several death camps are established in occupied Poland to recieve, process, and extreminate the Jews of Europe. To help run this massive machinery of death, the German S.S. establishes the Jewish Sonderkommandos: special groups of prisoners who will help run the gas chambers in exchange for special privileges, unheard of by Concentration Camp standards. "The Grey Zone" thus explores the life of 12th Auschwitz Sonderkommando, up to and including a major uprising in which the Sonderkommando destroyed two gas chambers after learning that they were to be killed and replaced by a new group of prisoners.