The Pianist is a memoir of the Polish composer of Jewish origin Władysław Szpilman, written and elaborated by the Polish author Jerzy Waldorff, who met Szpilman in 1938 in Krynica and became a friend of his.

The book is written in the first person as the memoir of Szpilman.

Again, the experience of those in the bigger ghetto is best described by Szpilman: Dozens of beggars lay in wait for this brief moment of encounter with a prosperous citizen, mobbing him by pulling at his clothes, barring his way, begging, weeping, shouting, threatening.

He helped to hide or rescue several Poles, including Jews, in Nazi-occupied Poland, and is perhaps most remembered for helping Polish-Jewish pianist and composer Władysław Szpilman to survive, hidden, in the ruins of Warsaw during the last months of 1944.

To do this they chose a young man known to Szpilman as “ Majorek ” ( Little Major ).

In 2002, Roman Polanski directed a screen version, also called The Pianist, but Szpilman died before the film was completed.

In 2002, Polish-born film-maker Roman Polanski directed a screen version, also called The Pianist, but Szpilman died before the film was completed.

Some people were hiding in the remnants of the city, e. g. Władysław Szpilman, who later wrote his memoir The Pianist, filmed by Roman Polanski ( The Pianist, 2002 ).

In 2002, The Pianist, a film based on Szpilman's memoirs of the same name, portrayed Wilm Hosenfeld's rescue of Władysław Szpilman.

Szpilman also performed as a soloist and with violinists Bronislav Gimpel, Roman Totenberg, Ida Haendel and Henryk Szeryng.

Even though the stinking water was covered in an iridescent film, Szpilman drank deeply, although he stopped after inadvertently swallowing a considerable amount of dead insects.

His work focusing on this period includes the films Operation Daybreak ( covering the assassination by the Czechoslovakian Resistance of Nazi leader Reinhard Heydrich ), The Statement ( a fictionalized account of the post-War life-on-the-run of French collaborator Paul Touvier ), The Pianist ( an adaptation of the autobiography of the Jewish-Polish musician Władysław Szpilman covering his survival during the Nazi occupation of Poland ), the play later adapted to film Taking Sides ( focused on the post-War " de-Nazification " investigation of the German conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler ), the play Collaboration ( about the composer Richard Strauss and his partnership with the Jewish writer Stefan Zweig ), and the play An English Tragedy ( dealing with the British fascist John Amery ).

In The Pianist, Henryk Szpilman quotes a passage from Shylock's ' Hath a Jew No Eyes?

The latest edition was slightly expanded by Andrzej Szpilman himself and printed under a different title, The Pianist.

In 1998, Szpilman ’ s son Andrzej Szpilman republished the memoir of his father ’ s, first in German as Das wunderbare Überleben (" The Miraculous Survival ") and then in English as The Pianist.

In The Pianist, Szpilman describes a newspaper article that appeared in October 1940: A little while later the only Warsaw newspaper published in Polish by the Germans provided an official comment on this subject: not only were the Jews social parasites, they also spread infection.

Szpilman's son Andrzej compiled and released a CD with the most popular songs Szpilman had composed under the title Wendy Lands Sings the Songs of the Pianist ( Universal Music ).

Other CDs with the works of Szpilman include Works for Piano and Orchestra by Władysław Szpilman with Ewa Kupiec ( piano ), John Axelrod ( director ), and the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra ( 2004 ) ( Sony BMG ) and the Original recordings of The Pianist and Władysław Szpilman-Legendary recordings ( Sony classical ).

** The Pianist ( Wladyslaw Szpilman )

* The Pianist ( memoir ), a book by Władysław Szpilman about himself, a Polish-Jewish musician, who survived the Holocaust

Because of Stalinist cultural policy, and the ostensibly " grey areas " in which Szpilman ( Waldorff ) asserted that not all Germans were bad and not all of the oppressed were good, the actual book remained sidelined for more than 50 years.

Szpilman played piano at an expensive café which pandered to the ghetto ’ s upper class, made up largely of smugglers and other war profiteers, and their wives or mistresses.

Szpilman and his family were fortunate to live in the small ghetto, which was less crowded and dangerous than the other.

After much effort, Szpilman managed to extract from him a promise that Henryk would be home by that night, which he was.

Eventually, Szpilman was posted to a steady job as “ storeroom manager .” In this position, Szpilman organised the stores at the SS accommodation, which his group was preparing.

From the window of the flat in which he was hiding, Szpilman had a good vantage point from which to watch the beginnings of the rebellion.

Hiding in a predominantly German area, however, Szpilman was not in a good position to go out and join the fighting: first he would need to get past several units of German soldiers who were holding the area against the main power of the rebellion, which was based in the city centre.

As soon as he took the sleeping pills, which acted almost instantly on his empty stomach, Szpilman fell asleep.

On 30 August, Szpilman moved back into his old building, which by this time had entirely burnt out.

Here, in larders and bathtubs ( which, due to the ravages of the fire, were now open to the air ) Szpilman found bread and rainwater, which kept him alive.

By October 14 Szpilman and the German army were all but the only humans still living in Warsaw, which had been completely destroyed by the Germans.

Szpilman managed to find work as a musician to support his family which included his mother, father, brother Henryk, and two sisters, Regina and Halina.

A member of the Jewish Police ( Itzchak Heller ) pulled Szpilman from a line of people — including his parents, brother, and two sisters — being loaded onto a train at the transport site ( which, as in other ghettos, was called the Umschlagplatz ).

In 1963, Szpilman and Gimpel founded the Warsaw Piano Quintet, with which Szpilman performed worldwide until 1986.

When not touring or building pianos, he has been editing piano editions of the works of Władysław Szpilman for Boosey and Hawkes and wrote a piece on aesthetics, which was published in Poland in March 2005.

But, on 16 August 1942, Szpilman ’ s luck ran out.

Szpilman describes their last moments together before the train arrived: At one point a boy made his way through the crowd in our direction with a box of sweets on a string round his neck.

After his work on the wall Szpilman survived another selection in the ghetto and was sent to work on many different tasks, such as cleaning out the yard of the Jewish council building.

Hidden inside his bags of food every day, Majorek would bring weapons and ammunition into the ghetto to be passed on to the resistance by Szpilman and the other workers.

But also, Majorek was a link to Szpilman ’ s Polish friends and acquaintances on the outside.

On February 13, 1943, Szpilman slipped through the ghetto gate and met up with his friend Andrzej Bogucki on the other side.

Szpilman only stayed in his first hiding place for a few days before he moved on.

During the months that Szpilman spent in hiding, he came extremely close to suicide on several occasions, but never had to carry out his plans.

However, on August 12, 1944, the German search for the culprits behind the rebellion reached Szpilman ’ s building.

Szpilman, hiding in his flat on the fourth floor, could only hope that the flats on the first floor were the only ones that were burning and that he would be able to escape the flames by staying high.

From then on, Szpilman decided to stay hidden on the roof every day, only coming down at dusk to search for food.

Lying on the roof one day Szpilman suddenly heard a burst of firing near him.

Szpilman, wishing to be friendly, came out of his hiding place and greeted one of these civilians, a woman carrying a bundle on her back.

Lednicki told Szpilman of a German officer he had met at a Soviet Prisoner of War camp on his way back from his wanderings after the defeat of the Warsaw Uprising.

Szpilman died in Warsaw on 6 July 2000 at the age of 88.

Władysław Szpilman and his family, along with all other Jews living in Warsaw, were forced to move into a " Jewish District "— the Warsaw Ghetto — on 31 October 1940.

Szpilman later played in a cafe on Sienna Street and also the Sztuka Cafe on Leszno Street.

Surprisingly, the officer did not kill Szpilman, but instead after finding out that he was a pianist, asked Szpilman to play for him on a piano they had found.