Status
Available
Call number
Collection
Publication
Orion Pub Co (2002), 224 pages
Description
A Jewish pianist's real-life account of survival in World War II Warsaw. Separated in a męlée, he fights to rejoin his family as they board the death train, but police block him. "Papa!" he cries. The father waves, "as if I were setting out into life and he was already greeting me from beyond the grave.".
User reviews
LibraryThing member AnnieMod
How do you review a memoir of the Holocaust? I've been looking for a way to start this review for 30 minutes and I am still not sure what a review should be.
Szpilman's story of his survival in Warsaw during WWII is heartbreaking and almost understated. It is almost as if he believe it was nothing
The Warsaw Ghetto is one of the best known horror stories of the war - together with the camps and the gas chambers. But in most memoirs I had read, people end up out of Warsaw to survive. Szpilman never leaves the city - he hides and survives fire and cold; he even survives when his name is selected to be sent with one of the cattle carts that moved people out from the Ghetto. He lost his whole family and more than once he was ready to die - just to find a reason to live again.
The fall and liberation of Warsaw are bracketed by two renditions of Chopin's Nocturne in C sharp minor - the last thing to run on the radio before the broadcasting location was shelled; 6 years later, Szpilman is performing the same on the newly restarted Polish radio.
The story is written immediately after the war and one expects it to be bitter or disillusioned. But it is not - Szpilman sound almost detached from the horrors and the unspeakable tragedy he is describing. And somewhere in that story, there is also a German that saves him when everyone else had left.
The book contains not only the memoir of the Polish musician but also parts of the diary of that German, Wilm Hosenfeld, - showing that not everyone in Germany was part of the machine - even when they were part of the army. One of the tragedies of the times is that he was killed despite him helping more than one Jew - not in the war but in the Soviet POW camps after that, partially because they did not believe him.
It is a story of healing and acceptance. A way to exorcise the demons so the life can continue. Or a way to say everything that is in a man heart so space can be made for new and better memories. Whatever the reason, it is one of the memoirs that should be read.
The fact that the German officer had to be changed to an Austrian so it can be published in the new Poland after the war shows clearly that the war taught humanity nothing. The fact that it was pulled out soon after publishing and never republished until the times changed due to the Ukrainian and Baltic helpers of Germany being shown clearly is unfortunate and direct result of the split of the continent after the end of the war. (the afterword of that edition is more informative than usual). The war that should have united everyone ended up with the world split worse than ever. And humanity is still healing. But that is a different story. And not part of this book.
Szpilman's story of his survival in Warsaw during WWII is heartbreaking and almost understated. It is almost as if he believe it was nothing
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special - that it just happened. And yet, he never got sent to a camp as most of the Warsaw Jews (partially due to luck, partially because of his own ingenuity), he did not get shot as a lot of the ones that somehow were left in the city, he never ended up in a prison or worse. But not because he sold out to the Germans - he lived in the Ghetto and refused to enter the police, he lived in hiding despite people cheating and people dying around him. And at the end, it was a German officer that made sure that he was clothed and fed enough to survive until the city was liberated. The Warsaw Ghetto is one of the best known horror stories of the war - together with the camps and the gas chambers. But in most memoirs I had read, people end up out of Warsaw to survive. Szpilman never leaves the city - he hides and survives fire and cold; he even survives when his name is selected to be sent with one of the cattle carts that moved people out from the Ghetto. He lost his whole family and more than once he was ready to die - just to find a reason to live again.
The fall and liberation of Warsaw are bracketed by two renditions of Chopin's Nocturne in C sharp minor - the last thing to run on the radio before the broadcasting location was shelled; 6 years later, Szpilman is performing the same on the newly restarted Polish radio.
The story is written immediately after the war and one expects it to be bitter or disillusioned. But it is not - Szpilman sound almost detached from the horrors and the unspeakable tragedy he is describing. And somewhere in that story, there is also a German that saves him when everyone else had left.
The book contains not only the memoir of the Polish musician but also parts of the diary of that German, Wilm Hosenfeld, - showing that not everyone in Germany was part of the machine - even when they were part of the army. One of the tragedies of the times is that he was killed despite him helping more than one Jew - not in the war but in the Soviet POW camps after that, partially because they did not believe him.
It is a story of healing and acceptance. A way to exorcise the demons so the life can continue. Or a way to say everything that is in a man heart so space can be made for new and better memories. Whatever the reason, it is one of the memoirs that should be read.
The fact that the German officer had to be changed to an Austrian so it can be published in the new Poland after the war shows clearly that the war taught humanity nothing. The fact that it was pulled out soon after publishing and never republished until the times changed due to the Ukrainian and Baltic helpers of Germany being shown clearly is unfortunate and direct result of the split of the continent after the end of the war. (the afterword of that edition is more informative than usual). The war that should have united everyone ended up with the world split worse than ever. And humanity is still healing. But that is a different story. And not part of this book.
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LibraryThing member messpots
This is a far more special book than even its admirers give it credit for. Accounts by Jews in wartime are of course "survivors' accounts," but this book is a good deal more. Szpilman was a very famous and talented man and, at crucial moments in his life, certain people stepped forward at great
Polanski directed a beautiful film, but he and his screenwriter utterly missed this unique story: a person who survived because the people around him couldn't bear to allow such an extraordinary talent to be lost. The German Hosenfeld is only the last of many people to be bowled over by Szpilman's playing. To the very end Polanski sticks to the "survivor's account," and where the book shows Hosenfeld to be helpful and contrite, and Szpilman to be grateful, Polanski opts for a kind of "degraded man can still play the piano" ending. A lost opportunity.
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personal risk to save him and his talent for the world. The reader easily misses this, not because Szpilman tries to hide what others did for him, but because he is very modest about his talent and the high esteem in which he was held by prewar Polish audiences. This is therefore not a standard "survivors' account" but also an account of the lengths some people will go to help a remarkable person.Polanski directed a beautiful film, but he and his screenwriter utterly missed this unique story: a person who survived because the people around him couldn't bear to allow such an extraordinary talent to be lost. The German Hosenfeld is only the last of many people to be bowled over by Szpilman's playing. To the very end Polanski sticks to the "survivor's account," and where the book shows Hosenfeld to be helpful and contrite, and Szpilman to be grateful, Polanski opts for a kind of "degraded man can still play the piano" ending. A lost opportunity.
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LibraryThing member SqueakyChu
Every story of Holocaust survival is a miracle. SzpilmanâÂÂs story is a most amazing telling of the conditions under which his career was interrupted, his family and friends perished, his beloved city was demolished, and his life and health threatened. He survives against almost all odds during
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the Nazi occupation of Poland and the methodical annihilation of the Jews in the Warsaw ghetto. Despite losing two sisters to the Nazis, he never relinquishes his love of his country nor his devotion to his career as a composer and pianist. In a time of despicable treatment between human beings, there appear a few individuals who shine forth with kindness to Szpilman. It is their involvement and concern that is instrumental in keeping Szpilman alive through the end of the war. This is an astonishing story. Show Less
LibraryThing member cbl_tn
Pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman was a Polish Jew who was the only member of his family to survive the Holocaust. As more and more Jews were transported from Warsaw's Ghetto to extermination camps, it was inevitable that Szpilman's family would be among them. At the last moment he was pulled from the
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train that took the rest of his family to their deaths. He spent the rest of the war in Warsaw and was perhaps the only Jew left in his sector of Warsaw at the end of the war. His survival came at a great cost. It was through this book that I discovered that Janusz Korczak, the champion of Warsaw's orphans who is a central figure in The Book of Aron, was a real person and not a fictional character. Most of the Holocaust memoirs I've read were written decades after the events, when their authors had some emotional distance from what must surely have been the most painful period of their lives. Szpilman's memoir was written shortly after the end of the war, when his emotions were still raw. As a result, it's much more intense than most of the other memoirs I've read. Highly recommended. Show Less
LibraryThing member elleayess
This was an amazing book. I found it to be even better than the movie, which was pretty good in itself. Aren't all books better than the movie? The book tended to go farther than the movie on certain concepts, which I greatly appreciated. In addition, my edition came with excerpts from the Nazi
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officer who helped him. His journal was very insightful. The commentary at the end of the book offered the most information. What a great story of survival in such a dark time. Show Less
LibraryThing member bherner
Szpilman wrote an amazingly matter-of-fact book. The movie was true to the book.
LibraryThing member taciturning
An account of WWII that leaves you breathless and truly believing in miracles.
LibraryThing member heinous-eli
The protagonist's emotional detachment due to trauma serves to make this narrative all the more compelling. Worthy not only for its potentially didactic use, it's an amazing look into the inner and outer life of a man struggling against forces that almost seem to not acknowledge his existence. The
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afterword makes the story all the more interesting. Show Less
LibraryThing member Katie_H
This is an astonishing autobiographical account of a Polish Jew's survival in Warsaw during World War II. Szpilman, a pianist, shares his chilling tale using a calm and haunting style of writing, and the reader cannot help but be moved and inspired. While most Holocaust memoirs revolve around
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concentration camps, this one is unique in that it shares of his experiences in and around the Warsaw ghetto. His survival over those years was truly miraculous; he avoided death at the Nazis' hand many times, all of which are shared in his memoir. This is a poignant story of endurance, faith, and hope, and should be required reading for anyone interested in Shoah literature. Show Less
LibraryThing member ckoller
This book was heart breaking and remarkable.
LibraryThing member AmaliaGavea
The triumph of the human spirit, the strength of the human soul to find its way out of the darkness, the injustice, the never-ending nightmare, the ordeal of living in a world where absolute fear and beastly behaviour dictate everyoneâs life.
This is the life of a man, an artist, who experienced
Rating and reviewing lose every meaning and importance when we refer to books such as this. I wish we were in a position to say that we need to look back and vow to ourselves that the nightmare will never be awakened again. I wish we could claim such a thing and actually believe that it wonât be a void wish...But there is always someone, there is always a ââchosenââ leader that turns the world into a toy to pass the timeâŚ
Szpilmanâs ordeal and survival was depicted to perfection in the 2002 film by the great Roman Polanski, starring the impeccable Adrien Brody. They both won the Academy Awards in their respective categories.
This is the life of a man, an artist, who experienced
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persecution, confinement, famine, disease. A man whose strength and faith defeated monsters. A pianist whose talent touched the heart of the enemy, except this enemy was different from the others, a kind soul among the vilest of people. Wladyslaw Szpilman lost his family, his work, his dream of playing a music that becomes the exaltation of the soul. He lived like a caged animal for six years, because of a madmanâs idea of a perfect world. And he survived. His writing communicates his soul without melodramatic sentences or shocking details. His works flow like a perfectly performed NocturneâŚ.Rating and reviewing lose every meaning and importance when we refer to books such as this. I wish we were in a position to say that we need to look back and vow to ourselves that the nightmare will never be awakened again. I wish we could claim such a thing and actually believe that it wonât be a void wish...But there is always someone, there is always a ââchosenââ leader that turns the world into a toy to pass the timeâŚ
Szpilmanâs ordeal and survival was depicted to perfection in the 2002 film by the great Roman Polanski, starring the impeccable Adrien Brody. They both won the Academy Awards in their respective categories.
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LibraryThing member creighley
On September 23, 1939, Wladyslaw Szpilman played Chopin's Nocturne in C sharp minor as bombs e plodded around him. His whole family is eventually killed,but he somehow manages to survive.
LibraryThing member mattviews
In his book The Pianist: The Extraordinary True Story of One Man's Survival in Warsaw, Wladyslaw Szpilman writes, "A number of people escaped with their lives during the war because of the cowardice of the Germans, who liked to show courage only when they felt they greatly outnumbered their
The prose is written in a very calm voice which somewhat surprises me at the beginning. Later I realize that no sooner had the war ended and the Germans surrendered than Mr. Szpilman wrote this account fresh from memory. It seems to be that Mr. Szpilman was emotionally detached during the writing as he probably had not come back to his senses after the inferno. That also explained why he could accurately recall and date the incidents accordingly. The book itself is emotionally difficult to read and at some points I have to put it down, close my eyes and meditate for a minute. Few of the incidents still capture my mind and bother me after I finish reading: Mr. Szpilman's parting from his family as his parents, brother and sisters were taken away to concentration camp; the clearing of a Jewish orphanage founded by his friend Janusz who stayed his children on their final journey, the Germans (fabricated) video-clipping of Jewish men and women shower naked in public bathhouse to show how immoral and despicable the Jews were; and Mr. Szpilman's fugitive life after his escape from the Germans. Mr. Szpilman attempted suicide but the will for survival overcame the idea. His life took a dramatic turn when Captain Hosenfeld found him in the ruined city of Warsaw and spared his life. Though he never found the man, as Mr. Szpilman reminisced, Hosenfeld was the angel without whom, Mr. Szpilman, a Polish Jew, would probably not have survived at all. During his hiding days, Mr. Szpilman meditated on the music pieces and arduously maintained the hope of playing piano for the Poles again. Mr. Szpilman's account is a stunning tale of endurance, faith, and hope.
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enemies." Truly and luckily, Szpilman is one among the number. From almost a million Jews population in the city of Warsaw, through "resettlement", human-hunting, and unreasonable decrees; the Germans trimmed the Jewish descent to its bone of merely twenty-five thousand in just 5 years. It is the very cowardice of the Germans, and more importantly the undying will of living that makes Szpilman's survival possible. I'm not in a position to judge the manner of which this book was written, simply because it was Mr. Szpilman's real life story and to whom I shall pay my highest tribute and regard.The prose is written in a very calm voice which somewhat surprises me at the beginning. Later I realize that no sooner had the war ended and the Germans surrendered than Mr. Szpilman wrote this account fresh from memory. It seems to be that Mr. Szpilman was emotionally detached during the writing as he probably had not come back to his senses after the inferno. That also explained why he could accurately recall and date the incidents accordingly. The book itself is emotionally difficult to read and at some points I have to put it down, close my eyes and meditate for a minute. Few of the incidents still capture my mind and bother me after I finish reading: Mr. Szpilman's parting from his family as his parents, brother and sisters were taken away to concentration camp; the clearing of a Jewish orphanage founded by his friend Janusz who stayed his children on their final journey, the Germans (fabricated) video-clipping of Jewish men and women shower naked in public bathhouse to show how immoral and despicable the Jews were; and Mr. Szpilman's fugitive life after his escape from the Germans. Mr. Szpilman attempted suicide but the will for survival overcame the idea. His life took a dramatic turn when Captain Hosenfeld found him in the ruined city of Warsaw and spared his life. Though he never found the man, as Mr. Szpilman reminisced, Hosenfeld was the angel without whom, Mr. Szpilman, a Polish Jew, would probably not have survived at all. During his hiding days, Mr. Szpilman meditated on the music pieces and arduously maintained the hope of playing piano for the Poles again. Mr. Szpilman's account is a stunning tale of endurance, faith, and hope.
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LibraryThing member KarenDuff
This is the first book I've read that made me want to cry. Even though I had seen the film and of course the title gives it away that he survives.
I liked that there had been an appendix added to the book that told you more about the German officer that helped numerous people escape from the Nazis
For me one of the most heartbreaking parts is a sentence at the end of the third chapter 'There was a special section devoted to the Jews: they were guaranteed all their rights, the inviolability of their property, and that their lives would be absolutely secure.'
I liked that there had been an appendix added to the book that told you more about the German officer that helped numerous people escape from the Nazis
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not just Szpilman.For me one of the most heartbreaking parts is a sentence at the end of the third chapter 'There was a special section devoted to the Jews: they were guaranteed all their rights, the inviolability of their property, and that their lives would be absolutely secure.'
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LibraryThing member moosenoose
Brilliant. Moving. A must read.
LibraryThing member BookConcierge
The subtitle is all the synopsis anyone needs: The Extraordinary True Story of One manâs Survival in Warsaw, 1939-1945.
Szpilman was a pianist who performed on Polish radio. He was, in fact, playing Chopinâs Nocturne in C-sharp Minor, live on the radio on Sept 23, 1939, when shells exploded
He wrote his story shortly after the war was over, but it was suppressed for decades, finally being published in 1999, and even then, not in Poland. The edition I had included entries from the diary of Captain Wilm Hosenfeld, the German officer who saved Szpilman towards the end of the war.
Szpilmanâs story is told in a very straightforward manner. He recounts the ever-increasing restrictions imposed by the government on Jews, the forbearance and belief that âthis is bound to passâ among his family and others in the community, the terror and horror of witnessing (or being subject to) random acts of violence and death. And yet, there is a certain cool detachment. Almost as if he were witnessing someone elseâs story rather than reliving those experiences himself. In the forward, his son Andrzej supposes that his father wrote the memoir â⌠for himself rather than humanity in general. It enabled him to work through his shattering wartime experiences and free his mind and emotions to continue with his life.â
I found it engaging and gripping. Even though I knew he survived, I simply could not stop reading.
The extraordinary memoir was adapted to film in 2002, starring Adrien Brody (who won the Oscar for his performance) and directed by Roman Polanski (Oscar for Best Director).
Szpilman was a pianist who performed on Polish radio. He was, in fact, playing Chopinâs Nocturne in C-sharp Minor, live on the radio on Sept 23, 1939, when shells exploded
Show More
outside the station. It was the last live music broadcast from Warsaw that day; a German bomb hit the station, and Polish radio went off the air. Ultimately, the Naziâs plan for extermination of the Jews would take all of his family, but Szpilman would manage â by luck, courage, tenacity, and the kindness of others â to stay hidden and survive. The most unlikely person to help him was a German officer who came across him in the ruins of a building scrounging for food. He wrote his story shortly after the war was over, but it was suppressed for decades, finally being published in 1999, and even then, not in Poland. The edition I had included entries from the diary of Captain Wilm Hosenfeld, the German officer who saved Szpilman towards the end of the war.
Szpilmanâs story is told in a very straightforward manner. He recounts the ever-increasing restrictions imposed by the government on Jews, the forbearance and belief that âthis is bound to passâ among his family and others in the community, the terror and horror of witnessing (or being subject to) random acts of violence and death. And yet, there is a certain cool detachment. Almost as if he were witnessing someone elseâs story rather than reliving those experiences himself. In the forward, his son Andrzej supposes that his father wrote the memoir â⌠for himself rather than humanity in general. It enabled him to work through his shattering wartime experiences and free his mind and emotions to continue with his life.â
I found it engaging and gripping. Even though I knew he survived, I simply could not stop reading.
The extraordinary memoir was adapted to film in 2002, starring Adrien Brody (who won the Oscar for his performance) and directed by Roman Polanski (Oscar for Best Director).
Show Less
LibraryThing member kslade
Good holocaust survival memoir. Pretty good film too.
Subjects
Awards
Wingate Literary Prize (Winner — Non-Fiction — 2000)
Original language
English
Original publication date
1999
Physical description
240 p.; 5.12 inches
ISBN
0753814056 / 9780753814055
Other editions
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