The Oath explores the litany of bru­tal exper­i­ments inflict­ed on Jew­ish con­cen­tra­tion camp internees and how many per­pe­tra­tors of these crimes evad­ed pros­e­cu­tion, specif­i­cal­ly the cold immer­sion exper­i­ments con­duct­ed on Jew­ish male pris­on­ers. These men were stripped naked and immersed in freez­ing water for hours killing many.

A fic­tion­al­ized Jew­ish doc­tor, Dr. Michel Katz, is round­ed up and sent to Auschwitz. To pro­tect his fam­i­ly, Dr. Katz meets with Josef Men­gele and betrays the oath he took to do no harm, unwit­ting­ly aid­ing in the ruth­less tor­ture and deaths of many of his fel­low Jew­ish inmates. Even­tu­al­ly lib­er­at­ed from Auschwitz, he must live with the guilt of his actions. Katz assist­ed SS Dok­tor Hans Bloch in his hypother­mia stud­ies, and Bloch evades pun­ish­ment for his crimes com­ing to the Unit­ed States through ​“Oper­a­tion Paper Clip” along with oth­er SS sci­en­tists includ­ing Wern­er Von Braun. A for­mer pris­on­er, Mar­tin Brosky, ded­i­cates his life to hunt and kill SS offi­cers who fled Europe, high­light­ing the argu­ment whether revenge is justice.