Rating: 
Summary: Powerful Account of One Life
Review: We saw the movie "The Pianist" on tv, which was excellent and left us wanting to know more about this man Szpilman. We bought his book and it is truly a horror story as well as a story of courage and survival. Lest we ever forget what happened to six million people simply because of their 'mere biological fact of being a jew' (as quoted from Szpilman in his book). This man brings it all down to the personal level, one man against all the odds of survival in such a cruel and murderous occupation. My wife went to bed some nights (while reading this book) unable to sleep, trying to put herself into the position of these people who were starved, treated worse than animals, humiliated, separated from their families, murdered and discarded. It will always beg the question: How can one human being be so cruel to another human being? We both highly recommend this book to hear this man's powerful story.
Rating:
Summary: WOW!
Review: That's all one can say about this book. So much tragedy is packed into so little space but what's in those 187 pages will make you rethink about the little things in life we take for granted so much nowadays. I always roll my eyes whenever I hear someone in a restaurant complain about their food or ask that a dish be prepared in a specific way (as if they're the king or queen of the universe). At those times I always think of Europeans during World War II who had next to nothing and had to ration it to make it last for weeks. With Mr. Szpilman's vivid descriptions of his drinking water that had bugs in it and foam at the top (loaded with bacteria) and drinking it as if it came straight from a well, I will have to really restrain myself in the future from telling people where to go when they have so much. One thing that befuddled me was the notion that the Soviets were some kind of saviors, that they were better than the Germans (even Captain Wilm Hosenfeld, in his diary entries at the end of the book, bought into this when he stated that not even in the cellars of the Russian secret police was there a more efficient way of murdering people than the crematoriums near Lublin). Not for nothing but more people died in Russia under Joseph Stalin than in Germany or Poland and Stalin's murderous ways made Hitler look like a choirboy. The Russians could have cared less about Poland. While reading this book, I also couldn't help but going back through conversations with people who rave about how the war years were so great. I also get a kick out of the folks still around who sniff at the rest of us that THEY know what freedom is all about. Americans went through nothing during the Second World War. While people here were fox-trotting and jitterbugging and the women were flirting with servicemen at the local dance hall, European Jews were being crammed into cattle trucks saturated with chlorine (the scene from Roman Polanski's movie version of the book left a lasting impression with me), people were being shot on the streets of Poland, Germany, and everywhere else in Europe for simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Ask European Jews if 1939-1945 were the best years of their lives. Personally, I don't know how Mr. Szpilman came out of the war with his mind intact. His love of music got him through it all and saved his life in the end. Most amazing of all, he didn't turn out to be a bitter man. I hope Mr. Szpilman and Captain Wilm Hosenfeld are friends on the Other Side and I also hope to see Hosenfeld honored as a Righteous Gentile someday. Speaking of Captain Hosenfeld, he turned out to be a visionary and was right on the money in so many ways. Too bad he was on the wrong side of things (and sorry to see he met the death he did at the hands of the Russians. Hitler got nothing next to him). After reading this powerful book, I am thoroughly convinced that people my age (late 20's) don't know what it's like to struggle nor do we know the meaning of true survival.
Rating:
Summary: Sad and beautiful story
Review: This is a small and quick read, but an Incredible Story. I couldn't put the book down. The main character is a gifted writer and a beautiful person. This book is VERY heavy, but a great read, and highly recommended to anyone.
Rating:
Summary: Truly profound
Review: The Pianist is, without a doubt, a book that should be required reading for students when learning of horrors of The Holocaust. It is a most touching, albeit somewhat disturbing, memoir that everyone should read in order to fully grasp the horrific nature of the diabolical crimes perpetuated against humanity by the Nazis in Warsaw. It is at times shocking, at times unnerving, at times depressing, and, at times uplifting. The unshakable perseverence, resilience, and sheer will of survival emanate from Wladyslaw Szpilman throughout this disturbing memoir. The uspurpassed evil of the Gestapo and the perfidy of the traitorous Jewish Police prove to be most sickening. The arbitrary murdering of the Jewish population via genocide in the Warsaw ghetto sadly is only emblematic of Poland itself. The Jewish population in Poland before the war was 3.5 million. Afterwards, it was a mere 400,000. The evil that resides in the dark recesses of human nature that was emboldened to new levels by Hitler and his sordid agenda, as Captain Hosenfeld poignantly describes in his diary after the text, must never again be allowed to resurface. This book, although simplistic at times, could not have been more profound. It will, as it has done to me, leave an indelible reminder of the unremitting human spirit of Wladyslaw Szpilman and his arduous, if not unbelievable, triumph of over evil - against ridiculously impossible odds.
Rating:
Summary: Detached but Touching Memoir of Predicament and Survival
Review: It is highly surprising that Szpilman describes his predicament very coolly and detachedly as if it were someone else's sufferings. The story is painful, but his writing style is smooth and easy to read. Wladyslaw Szpilman may not be a writer, but I think he is gifted with a writing talent. Szpilman is an ordinary man. And he vividly describes how ordinary people were helplessly cornered and killed. I didn't know the life in Warsaw Ghetto had been so cruel. Definitely Szpilman could not have survived without luck and many people's help. But it should not be overlooked that one important factor of his survival was that he could keep sanity by his cool detachment, endurance and a strong will to survive. The relationship between Szpilman and Captain Hosenfeld is brief but touching. The epilogue's brief description of Szpilman's frustrated effort to rescue Hosenfeld is also touching. That symbolizes East Europe's tragedy; the suppression by Soviet soon after the liberation from Nazis.
Rating:
Summary: poignant, yet spiritually uplifting
Review: i cried while reading this book. i watched the movie as well and i could not stop crying. the poignancy just doesnt wear off, and the warmth of human love is so compelling and heart wrenching. It is spiritually uplifting to know that, no matter how tough the times and brutal the people, there will always be an angel somewhere who is blessed with compassion and love, as well as moral courage.
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Summary: Intriguing Holocaust Memoir
Review: Although this memoir of the Holocaust isn't as well-known as 'The Diary of Anne Frank', Wladyslaw Szpilman's 'The Pianist' deserves to be recognized as a vital record of Nazi atrocities during WWII. Written immediately after that conflict, the style is surreal, and not always completely chronological ' it is very much a 'stream of consciousness' narrative of what Szpilman remembers about the horrors that took place in his home city of Warsaw: the uncertainty in September of 1939, when the Germans invaded Poland; the Warsaw Ghetto, and the strange sense of normalcy that its inhabitants created for over two years; Szpilman mysteriously pulled out of line while the rest of his family boarded a train to certain death; and his survival outside of the Ghetto to the end of the war. It's hard to convey the emotions of the book, both from the author and from the reader: as in other literature of this topic, the savagery and transcendence of individuals boggles the mind. For every Wilm Hosenfeld, the German officer who probably saved Szpilman's life as he hid out in abandoned buildings, there's a collaborator, a Nazi, or Ukrainian who seems to delight in making others suffer. This edition of the book contains a foreward by Szpilman's son, extracts from Hosenfeld's diary (fascinating and poignant, considering his eventual fate in the Soviet Union), and an afterward by Wolf Biermann (with the startling fact that Szpilman had to say Hosenfeld was Austrian in the original edition, as apparently Germans in Cold War Poland couldn't have done anything good during the war!). I think, that in this day and age, with the resources available, more historical information could have been included: what exactly did happen to Szpilman's family? What about his later family life? What did he think about the post-war world? Minor quibbles, and they certainly did not impact my appreciation of the book.
Rating:
Summary: Horror in Warsaw
Review: I have never come across such strikingly true, disturbing book. It describes shockingly, in a brutal and impartial way, immensely diabolic character of human beings, how deeply it exists in all of us, ready to surface anytime given appropriate conditions.
How very depressing and opening eyes masterpiece! Too bad it has not been published and known in North America long time ago, that it has become popular only thanks to the great movie by Roman Polanski!
It should be a mandatory reading in every high school around the world, teaching young students how to condemn bestiality and avoid being turned into the murderer and sadist! Basic message is: do not get involved in any radical political movement, stay away from military. These organizations are to manipulate and use people for their own ugly agendas: "those who were given uniforms, police caps and clubs become animals" (quote from the text).
Book contains many indirect questions about us humans, that for obvious reasons do not have answers. However it forces a sensitive and intelligent reader to rethink God's and our role, role we play in this cruel world.
Where one story ends (survival of the author) another very dramatic and interesting begins - life of captain Hosenfeld who saved Wladyslaw Szpilman.
Hundreds of his letters and war diary survived - they will be available as a biography, next year in Germany. I hope very soon after, in North America as well.
I cannot wait to read it.
Rating:
Summary: A powerful testimony
Review: I was not aware of "The Pianist" (the book) until I saw the movie, which won Oscars for best director, best actor, and best adapted screenplay. After seeing the movie, I wanted to know more, so I read this book. Wladyslaw Szpilman provides an amazing accounting of his ordeal during Nazi's invasion & occupation of Poland. This book is for those who think they know everything about the Holocaust. Most coverage has focused on Germany or the death camps, but this book has a unique point of view: a Jew who, against all odds, survived the Nazi occupation of Poland. Humanity's capacity for evil and capacity for hope & survival are all displayed here in Szpilman's book. It is heartwrenching to read, but I think absolutely necessary and vital so history does not repeat itself.
Rating:
Summary: Unfortunately . . . art imitating life.
Review: This book should be required reading in high schools and in colleges where there is but a hint of racism, sexism, homophobia or any other of the "isms" that ignore the stark brutality of what we can do to persons all around us. Dr. King wrote, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." The Pianist reminds us of that. No, we ourselves were not responsible for the extermination camps and the unbelievable brutality generated against members of a race. And yet this happened in our century in the time of our fathers and grandfathers. What were they thinking? What was the world thnking? This is the darkest time of recent history. This is the darkest time in the last 1000 years. Nothing compares with it. Szpilman was no passing fad. He was one of the most relished and sought after conert pianists in his time. That he avoided execution by the Nazi's is the result not so much of survival skills or random chance, both playing a significant role, but possibly because he was destined to tell the story. The movie is brilliant but it should not offset the need to read the book, more powerful, more horrific, more meaningful. Szpilman and his survival is truly a juxtapositioning of "beauty and the beast," the true beast. Highly recommended.
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