This item is currently not available. If you have this item,
Join and post it to share with others.
Written immediately after the end of World War II, this morally complex Holocaust memoir is notable for its exact depiction of the grim details of life in Warsaw under the Nazi occupation. "Things you hardly noticed before took on enormous significance: a comfortable, solid armchair, the soothing look of a white-tiled stove," writes Wladyslaw Szpilman, a pianist for Polish radio when the Germans invaded. His mother's insistence on laying the table with clean linen for their midday meal, even as conditions for Jews worsened daily, makes palpable the Holocaust's abstract horror. Arbitrarily removed from the transport that took his family to certain death, Szpilman does not deny the "animal fear" that led him to seize this chance for escape, nor does he cheapen his emotions by belaboring them. Yet his cool prose contains plenty of biting rage, mostly buried in scathing asides (a Jewish doctor spared consignment to "the most wonderful of all gas chambers," for example). Szpilman found compassion in unlikely people, including a German officer who brought food and warm clothing to his hiding place during the war's last days. Extracts from the officer's wartime diary (added to this new edition), with their expressions of outrage at his fellow soldiers' behavior, remind us to be wary of general condemnation of any group.--Wendy Smith
Survivor Playing the piano at a cafe in 1940 helped the author to overcome his apathy and despair. The ghetto in Warsaw did not depend upon smuggling to feed itself. The winter of 1941-42 was very hard in the ghetto. Cold, hunger, vermin were present. Five thousand people died of typhus.
In the beginning people had tried to dig trenches around the city to prevent occupation by the Germans. After two days Szpilman went back to work at the radio station. A German bomb destroyed the transmitter. Warsaw surrendered September 27, 1939.
The author and his brother Henryk did not go out until dusk. They did not want to bow to the Germans. Experiences in the Warsaw ghetto, November 1940 to July 1942 merge , in retrospect, into a single day. The Germans reduced the area of the ghetto. The family ate simply, but their fare was lavish compared to what most people in the ghetto ate. Wladyslaw and his brother Henryk slept in a doctor's surgery to avoid being taken by the Germans in raids.
Jewish police and a Jewish labor bureau existed to deal with manpower needs. When Henryk was picked up the author petitioned for his release. Wladyslaw's last performance in the ghetto was July 19, 1942. The ghetto containing one half million people was to be resettled. It was like an anthill under threat. Ukranian and Lithuanian facists acted as paid executioners. A fellow pianist found work for the author and his family. Henryk and Halina, (a sister), survived the selction process as being fit for work. The unselected lined up for tramsport. Later Henryk and Halina volunteered to leave with the other family members.
At the last minute a policeman grabbed Wladyslaw and told him to save himself. He went to work demolishing the ghetto walls. Later he worked on some of the SS building projects. When he was a hod carrier the Polish mason seemed amazed he could play the piano since he seemed so awkward. On February 13, 1943, Wladyslaw was hidden in an apartment outside of the ghetto. He was fed by individuals in an underground organization. He had barely enough food to sustain life. The last hiding place was in the most German part of Warsaw, but it was in an apartment building filled with intellectuals.
August 1944 was the Warsaw uprising. Fires and looting resulted. Wladyslaw was told by an elegant German officer that the Warsaw fortress commando was about to move into the building in which he was hiding. The officer challenged him to play the piano. He played the Chopin Nocturne in E sharp minor. The officer helped him to hide and brought him food. In January 1945 Warsaw was liberated by Russian troops. Szpilman's book was published in Poland in 1946. Wilm Hosenfeld was the name of the officer who helped Szpilman to survive.
Refutes Claude Lanzmann's SHOAH and Other Holocaust Distortions
Polish Jew Wladyslaw Szpilman has written an outstanding and inspiring book that puts to shame much of today's schlocky Holocaust materials. Most Holocaust films today are German-whitewashing and ultra-Judeocentric. Unidentified Nazis (they may as well be aliens from another planet) arrive out of nowhere and kill the Jews while the sufferings of non-Jews are not only ignored but scrupulously avoided (the local population may as well be living a normal carefree life). Not Szpilman! He traces the course of German barbarism from the terror bombing of Warsaw and the high death toll to both Poles and Jews, to the brutal German conquest and occupation of Poland, the ensuing individual and mass murders of both Poles and Jews, the establishment of the Warsaw ghetto, the deportations of Jews to the death camps, the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, the destruction of the Ghetto, the Warsaw Uprising, and the ghastly obliteration of Warsaw by the vindictive Germans. Szpilman himself barely survives the war in the totally-gutted ruins of the Polish capital.
In common with many others who experienced the Holocaust, Szpilman criticizes the American Jews for their lack of concern (p. 14) and for the Jews about to be murdered for being too passive (pp. 101-102). Szpilman's entire account is remarkably free of Polonophobia. Unlike most Holocaust materials, which ignore or minimize the scale of Polish aid to Jews, Szpilman is forthright about the Poles' smuggling of food and arms into the ghetto (p. 13; p. 126).
Various Holocaust materials, notably Claude Lanzmann's SHOAH, have falsely accused the Poles of assisting in the roundup of Jews for shipment to the death camps. In fact, those actually responsible for this sordid work were none other than the Jewish ghetto police (p. 77-78, 90, 100, 105) as well as the units of Ukrainian and Lithuanian collaborationists (p. 89, 92-93, 114-115, 198). Later, during the Warsaw Uprising, murders of both Poles and Jews were conducted by the Ukrainian forces (p. 149, 155-156, 164-166, 169) and Vlassov (collaborationist Russian) units (p. 163). Szpilman's testimony soundly refutes contemporary Ukrainians who insist that their units had nothing to do with the suppression of the Warsaw Uprising.
Szpilman recounts an experience that refutes Jan Thomas Gross' rather silly notion that the German death penalty was applied too arbitrarily and frequently to deter Polish aid to Jews: "He came back, but with bad news: my acquaintances had said that they could not risk hiding a Jew. After all, they explained, rather indignant at my even having suggested such a thing, doing so carried the death penalty! (p. 122")
As for the Poles who turned Jews in, Szpilman avoids reflexive charges of anti-Semitism and instead comments (p. 147): "My immediate neighbours were a married couple active in the underground; they were on the run and did not sleep at home. This fact entailed some risk for me too, but I felt that I would rather have such people as neighbours than semi-educated Poles loyal to their masters who might hand me over out of fear." Yes, fear is a powerful motivator! Yet Szpilman is remarkably free of bitterness throughout this book.
Survival, Courage, Determination and Music Survival, Courage, Determination and Music!
The Pianist is the poignant and courageous story of Wladyslaw Szpilman's determination to survive the WWII Holocaust, during the time when the German Occupation began in Warsaw, Poland. Szpilman was a pianist, a Jew, but most importantly, he was a human being, who was caught up in events he never dreamed possible. He was a gentle man, an artist, a pianist whose hands were his lifeline. The film is visually graphic with details, and we sit horrified as we watch those events unfold. The book, on the other hand, is more overwhelming and filled with details that the film did not convey, and, again, we sit horrified, as Szpilman's words paint unspeakable atrocities and images before our eyes. We learn about the German Officer who helped him survive the last days of the German Occupation (and who has been recognized as Among The Righteous).
We are privvy to the German's own journal, which in itself, is testimony to the atrocities forced on the Jews. The book gives us insight into this aspect that the film did not touch on. The book is a testament to Szpilman's inner strength and courage...to his determination to start life over, once more, after the war ended, in his native city, where he lived out the rest of his life. I keep rereading portions of this book, because I can't let it go. It has a permanent place in my collection of books on the human condition, and books on Judaism.
