The Pianist: The Extraordinary True Story of One Man's Survival in Warsaw, 1939-1945
by Wladyslaw Szpilman
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Book Summary Information
Author: Wladyslaw SzpilmanEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2000-09-02
ISBN: 0312263767
Number of pages: 224
Publisher: Picador
Book Reviews of The Pianist: The Extraordinary True Story of One Man's Survival in Warsaw, 1939-1945
Book Review: Refutes Claude Lanzmann's SHOAH and Other Holocaust Distortions
Summary: 5 Stars
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.
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Summary of The Pianist: The Extraordinary True Story of One Man's Survival in Warsaw, 1939-1945
Named one of the Best Books of 1999 by the Los Angeles Times, The Pianist is now a major motion picture directed by Roman Polanski and starring Adrien Brody (Son of Sam). The Pianist won the Cannes Film Festival?s most prestigious prize?the Palme d?Or.
On September 23, 1939, Wladyslaw Szpilman played Chopin?s Nocturne in C-sharp minor live on the radio as shells exploded outside?so loudly that he couldn?t hear his piano. It was the last live music broadcast from Warsaw: That day, a German bomb hit the station, and Polish Radio went off the air.
Though he lost his entire family, Szpilman survived in hiding. In the end, his life was saved by a German officer who heard him play the same Chopin Nocturne on a piano found among the rubble. Written immediately after the war and suppressed for decades, The Pianist is a stunning testament to human endurance and the redemptive power of fellow feeling.
On September 23, 1939, Wladyslaw Szpilman played Chopin?s Nocturne in C-sharp minor live on the radio as shells exploded outside?so loudly that he couldn?t hear his piano. It was the last live music broadcast from Warsaw: That day, a German bomb hit the station, and Polish Radio went off the air.
Though he lost his entire family, Szpilman survived in hiding. In the end, his life was saved by a German officer who heard him play the same Chopin Nocturne on a piano found among the rubble. Written immediately after the war and suppressed for decades, The Pianist is a stunning testament to human endurance and the redemptive power of fellow feeling.
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
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