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.

In his memoir, Szpilman describes one of these forays: One day when I was walking along beside the wall I saw a childish smuggling operation that seemed to have reached a successful conclusion.

Szpilman describes the Jewish Police: You could have said, perhaps, that they caught the Gestapo spirit.

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.

Szpilman describes his last moments with his family :< p > By the time we had made our way to the train the first trucks were already full.

Szpilman describes the encounter:

Here, Szpilman !’ A hand grabbed me by the collar, and I was flung back and out of the police cordon .</ p >

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

Szpilman played Chopin's Ballade No. 1 Op. 23.

Szpilman began his study of the piano at the Chopin Academy of Music in Warsaw, Poland, where he studied piano with Alexander Michalowski and Josef Smidovicz, first-and second-generation pupils of Franz Liszt.

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.

Szpilman ’ s family ( he was living with his parents, his brother Henryk and his sisters Regina and Halina ) were amongst those who did not.

They hid their money in the window frame, an expensive gold watch under their cupboard and the watch ’ s chain beneath the fingerboard of Szpilman ’ s father ’ s violin.

To avoid the concentration camps, rich, intellectual Jews like Szpilman ’ s family and many of his acquaintances could pay to have poorer Jews deported in their place.

Szpilman ’ s family was lucky to already be living in the ghetto area when the plans were announced.

As soon as he heard the news of his brother ’ s arrest, Szpilman went to the labour bureau building, determined to secure Henryk ’ s release.

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

Soon after they arrived, Szpilman ’ s family was reunited.

Szpilman was horrified and angered by his siblings ’ headstrong decision, and only accepted their presence after his appeal to the guards had failed to secure their release.

At around this time, the Germans in charge of Szpilman ’ s group decided to allow each man five kilograms of potatoes and a loaf of bread every day, to make them feel more secure under the Germans ; fears of deportation had been running at especially high levels since the last selection.

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

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

All of the floors below Szpilman ’ s were burnt out to varying degrees, and Szpilman left the building to escape the poisonous smoke that filled all the rooms.

Food and drink were scarce in the hospital, and for the first four or five days of his stay in the building, Szpilman couldn ’ t find anything.

Inspecting the attic thoroughly, he found a loft above the attic that Szpilman hadn ’ t noticed as it was in a gloomy area of the roof.

So Szpilman came slowly down the stairs, shouting “ Don ’ t shoot!

When Szpilman resumed his job at Polish Radio in 1945, he did so by carrying on where he left off six years before: poignantly, he opened the first transmission by once again playing Chopin's Nocturne in C sharp minor ( Lento con gran espressione ), the piece he was playing as the German bombs hit the studios of Polish Radio, interrupting its broadcast on 23 September 1939.

* 1911 – Władysław Szpilman, Polish pianist ( d. 2000 )

* December 5 – Władysław Szpilman, Polish pianist and memoirist ( d. 2000 )

' speech to his brother Władysław Szpilman in a Jewish Ghetto in Warsaw, Poland, during the Nazi occupation in World War II.

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.

It tells how Szpilman survived the German deportations of Jews to extermination camps, the 1943 destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto, and the 1944 Warsaw Uprising during World War II.

In the introduction to its first edition Jerzy Waldorff informed that he wrote " as closely as he could " the story told to him by Szpilman, and that he used his brief notes in the process.

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 was not a writer, according to his own son Andrzej.

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

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

Władysław Szpilman studied the piano in the early 1930s in Warsaw and Berlin.

Upon his return to Warsaw, Szpilman worked as a pianist for Polish Radio until the German invasion of Poland in 1939.

On his way to or from work, Szpilman would sometimes pass by the wall during smuggling hours.

In addition to the methods of smuggling mentioned previously, Szpilman observed many child smugglers at work.