The Spiritual Triumph of Wladyslaw Szpilman: Resistance in the Face of Tragedy
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Life in the Ghetto
"Children eating in a Warsaw ghetto street." ca.1941 -US Holocaust Memorial Museum
"In the ghetto it was terrible, my whole family was sent to Treblinka and I wanted to go but a policeman pulled me out. It was a tragedy for me."
-Wladyslaw Szpilman, The Guardian, March 21, 1999
Szpilman was widely recognized for his work as a talented pianist.
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During his family’s forced deportation to Treblinka, Szpilman suddenly found himself pulled behind a wall of officers. Realizing death was inevitable for those on the train, he abandoned everything and escaped back to the ghetto. |
"I simply walked straight ahead. I didn’t mind where I went. The Umschlagplatz and the trucks carrying my family away were behind me now. I could not hear the train any longer; it was already several kilometres beyond the city. Yet I could feel it inside me as it moved away. With every step I took along the pavement I became lonelier."
-Wladyslaw Szpilman, The Pianist: The Extraordinary True Story of One Man's Survival in Warsaw, 1939-1945
Szpilman’s survival rested on his tremendous work ethic. Physical labor concerned him as his hands were his greatest asset. He helped smuggle weapons that would later be used in the Warsaw Uprising.
“ 'It's a disgrace to us all!' he almost screamed. 'We're letting them take us to our death like sheep to the slaughter!.....at least we could break out of the ghetto, or at least die honourably, not as a stain on the face of history!”
-Wladyslaw Szpilman, The Pianist: The Extraordinary True Story of One Man's Survival in Warsaw, 1939-1945
Various jobs brought Szpilman to the Aryan side of Warsaw. Eventually, he managed to escape the ghetto and secure living arrangements in hiding.
"Our group was already on the Aryan side when we heard shots behind us. They came from the other groups of Jewish workers, surrounded in the ghetto and answering the German terror with return fire for the first time." |
Although life on the Aryan side was less harsh, Szpilman remained anxious. He had protection from Polish friends, but rations were scarce.
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"I looked like a wild man, I was dirty, unshaven, my hair was long. The German found me when I was in the ruins of someone's kitchen, looking for food. I found out later - this isn't in the book - that he was looking for toothpaste, but no matter. When he saw me, he asked me what on earth was I doing there ... What could I say? I couldn't say that I was Jewish, that I was hiding, that I had been in these ruins for months. I told him that this was my old flat, that I had come back to see what was left ..."
-Wladyslaw Szpilman, The Pianist: The Extraordinary True Story of One Man's Survival in Warsaw, 1939-1945