`For those who advocate WAR :WE WON'T LIVE THEM IN PEACE!'

Rating: 10/10 (15 April 2003)

The Warsaw Ghetto: Historical Background
When World War II broke out on September 1st, 1939, the Polish capital of Warsaw was one of Germany's first targets: the Luftwaffe bombed the city intensively for a fortnight, and then troops laid siege. Despite courageous resistance attempts, electricity outages and water and food shortages forced the residents to capitulate on September 27th. The Germans marched into Warsaw on October 1st. Of Poland's 3.5 million Jews, 360,000 - artisans, traders, workers, and professional people - lived in Warsaw, representing roughly one-third of the capital's total population. Following their occupation of Poland, the Germans used SS Police and Gestapo to set out on a deliberate and brutal course of subjecting the Jewish population to degradation, deprivation, starvation, confiscation of their homes, funds, and property, and random killings, leading to their total annihilation - "the final solution," as it was named by the Nazis. By December 1st, they were ordered to wear white armbands with a blue Star of David. Conscripted into labor squads, the Jews were forbidden to use public transportation and parks, to sit on benches, or to walk on the sidewalks. As all of the Jews in the region were forced in, the Ghetto population swelled to nearly 500,000 by November 15th, 1940, when the designated "Jewish District" was walled in with bricks. 100,000 Jews soon died, whether from famine and epidemics or from being shot dead at the whims of the SS Police and Gestapo. But the Ghetto inhabitants strove for a degree of normalcy even under such horrible conditions. Schooling efforts continued. Clandestine political and cultural activities were held. In July 1942, mass deportations began. Nearly 310,000 Jews were evicted from the Ghetto and loaded onto cattle cars, sent to the Treblinka extermination camp. The executions touched off an insurrection in the Warsaw Ghetto on April 19th, 1943. The revolt was led by Mordechai Anielewicz, from his bunker at Mila 18, and backed by the remaining 40,000 Jews - only 200 of whom were armed. SS troops, under the command of the infamous Gruppenfuehrer Jurgen Stroop, used tanks and artillery to put down the revolt. 7,000 Jews died during the fighting, which also claimed many Nazis. The standoff still lasted until May 16th. Anielewicz and his core group committed suicide. A few Jewish fighters, including Marek Edelman, managed to escape. The remaining 30,000-plus survivors were either executed on the spot or sent to the gas chambers. The entire Ghetto was razed. When the Germans were forced to retreat from Warsaw in January 1945, there were only about 20 Jews left alive in the city. One was Wladyslaw Szpilman.

About Wladyslaw Szpilman

Wladyslaw Szpilman (1911-2000) [pronounced "Vuadysuav Shpilman"; also addressed as Wladek ("Vuadek") Szpilman] was born in Sosnowiec, in Poland. As a young boy, he studied piano with Josef Smidowicz and Alexander Michalowski, themselves students of Franz Liszt. In 1931, he left for Berlin and continued his studies at the Academy of Music, under the direction of Leonid Kreutzer; and the Academy of Arts, under Arthur Schnabel and Franz Schreker. During these years, he composed a 'Concerto for Violin'; his Suite for piano 'Zycle maszyn' ("Life of Machines"); numerous pieces for piano and orchestra; film scores; and popular songs that brought him celebrity in his homeland. At the age of 27, Szpilman had established himself as one of Poland's foremost composers and concert pianists when Poland was attacked. In 1935, Szpilman was hired at the Polish state radio station of Warsaw. He was performing live on the airwaves, playing Chopin's 'Nocturne in C# [C sharp] Minor,' when the Luftwaffe dive-bombed the station on September 23rd, 1939. As Jews, Szpilman and his family (parents, brother Henryk, and sisters Halina and Regina) were soon evicted from their apartment and herded, with several hundred thousand others, into the Warsaw Ghetto. There, Szpilman scraped by, playing piano in the bars where black marketeers and collaborators gathered. On August 16th, 1942, it was one such Jewish collaborator, Itzak Heller, who stopped Szpilman from boarding the train that took his entire family to their death in the camps. Szpilman remained behind in Warsaw. Aided by an ad hoc network of pre-war acquaintances (such as his friend Dorota) resistance fighters (like Janina), and - most surprisingly - a German officer (Captain Wilm Hosenfeld), Szpilman survived the war. Warsaw was liberated in January 1945. Szpilman immediately wrote his memoirs, Death of a City, recounting his incredible but true experiences amidst torment. In a detached tone, his authentic account told of life in the Ghetto and of the victims and torturers in that singular world. The book was published in Poland in 1946 - but was then banned and suppressed by the Communist authorities. Polish radio started up again, fittingly, with Szpilman performing the Chopin piece that had been so violently interrupted six years earlier. He was named musical director of the state radio station. He also resumed his career as a pianist, playing in concerts and solo performances in Europe and America. He performed all over the world in piano duet with Bronislav Gimpel (with whom he also founded the Warsaw Piano Quintet). Szpilman also began composing music again. Many of his 300-plus songs became popular standards in Polish culture. The songs he wrote for children in the '50s earned him a 1955 prize from the Polish Composers Union. He later applied his composing talents to create ballets and classical pieces for younger audiences. In 1961, he founded the International Festival of Song at Sopot for the Union of Popular Song Writers in Poland. In 1964, he was elected member of the Academy of Polish Composers. He retired from concert performances in 1986, but continued composing. He resided in Warsaw for his entire life. In 1999, Szpilman's son Andrzej, whose father had never spoken about the war years (not uncommon among that generation of fathers and sons), arranged for the book to be published in Germany. The new edition incorporated wartime extracts from the diary of Captain Hosenfeld, who died in a Russian POW camp in 1952. The response to the book led to a worldwide translation and publication as The Pianist: The Extraordinary True Story of One Man's Survival in Warsaw, 1939-1945, generating international attention and acclaim. Roman Polanski, who had already met Szpilman twice years before, committed to make a film version of The Pianist. At their third meeting, in early 2000, Szpilman expressed his pleasure that the book was to be brought to the screen by a compatriot. Wladyslaw Szpilman passed away on July 6th, 2000, at the age of 88, a few months before filming of THE PIANIST began. He is survived by his wife Halina and sons Krzysztof and Andrzej.
Source: the pianist production notes.