Review, buy War & Espionage: The Pianist: The Extraordinary Story of One Man's Survival in Warsaw, 1939-45, South: The Story of Shackleton's Last Expedition, 1914-17, Biggest Brother: The Life of Major Dick Winters, the Man Who Led the Band of Brothers, The Dirty War, Continuum Contemporaries series: Pat Barker's "Regeneration": A Reader's Guide, Schindler's List, House to House: A Tale of Modern War, Nurse at the Trenches: Letters Home from a World War I Nurse, A Month at the Front: The Diary of an Unknown Soldier, Lancaster Target, Unsung Hero, The Wonderful Adventures of Mrs Seacole in Many Lands (Penguin 20th century classics), Big Boys' Rules: SAS and the Secret Struggle Against the IRA, When Thunder Rolled: An F-105 Pilot Over North Vietnam, Napoleon, One Unknown: A Powerful Account of Survival and One Woman's Inspirational Journey to a New Life, Brothers in War, This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen (Penguin Twentieth Century Classics), Spy Princess: The Life of Noor Inayat Khan, Pius XII: The Hound of Hitler

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Review Phoenix / The Pianist: The Extraordinary Story of One Man's Survival in Warsaw, 1939-45

The Pianist: The Extraordinary Story of One Man's Survival in Warsaw, 1939-45 (Phoenix)

Authors

Wladyslaw Szpilman

Edition: New edition
Publication date: 1999-12-30
Dewey code: 940
RRP: ~~£7.99~~
Price: £3.03

Review The Pianist: The Extraordinary Story of One Man's Survival in Warsaw, 1939-45 / Phoenix:

The last live broadcast on Polish Radio, on September 23, 1939, was Chopin's Nocturne in C sharp Minor, played by a young pianist named Wladyslaw Szpilman, until his playing was interrupted by German shelling. It was the same piece, and the same pianist, when broadcasting resumed six years later. The Pianist is Szpilman's account of the years in between, of the death and cruelty inflicted on the Jews of Warsaw and on Warsaw itself, related with a dispassionate restraint borne of shock. Szpilman, now 88, has not looked at his description since he wrote it in 1946 (the same time as Primo Levi's If This Is A Man?; it is too personally painful. The rest of us have no such excuse. Szpilman's family were deported to Treblinka, where they were exterminated; he survived only because a music-loving policeman recognised him. This was only the first in a series of fatefully lucky escapes that littered his life as he hid among the rubble and corpses of the Warsaw Ghetto, growing thinner and hungrier, yet condemned to live. Ironically, it was a German officer, Wilm Hosenfeld, who saved Szpilman's life by bringing food and an eiderdown to the derelict ruin where he discovered him. Hosenfeld died seven years later in a Stalingrad labour camp, but portions of his diary, reprinted here, tell of his outraged incomprehension of the madness and evil he witnessed, thereby establishing an effective counterpoint to ground the nightmarish vision of the pianist in a desperate reality. Szpilman originally published his account in Poland in 1946, but it was almost immediately withdrawn by Stalin's Polish minions as it unashamedly described collaborations by Lithuanians, Ukrainians, Poles and Jews with the Nazis. [+]

In 1997 it was published in Germany after Szpilman's son found it on his father's bookcase. This admirably robust translation by Anthea Bell is the first in the English language. There were 3,500,000 Jews in Poland before the Nazi occupation; after it there were 240,000. Wladyslaw Szpilman's extraordinary account of his own miraculous survival offers a voice across the years for the faceless millions who lost their lives. -David Vincent.

Review The Pianist: The Extraordinary Story of One Man's Survival in Warsaw, 1939-45 / Phoenix:

Review South: The Story of Shackleton's Last Expedition, 1914-17 / Pimlico:

Review Biggest Brother: The Life of Major Dick Winters, the Man Who Led the Band of Brothers / New American Library:

Review The Dirty War / Arrow Books Ltd:

Review Continuum Contemporaries series: Pat Barker's "Regeneration": A Reader's Guide / Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd.:

Review Schindler's List / Hodder & Stoughton Ltd:

Review House to House: A Tale of Modern War / Pocket Books:

Review Nurse at the Trenches: Letters Home from a World War I Nurse / Diggory Press:

Review A Month at the Front: The Diary of an Unknown Soldier / The Bodleian Library:

Review Lancaster Target / Goodall Publications Ltd:

Review Unsung Hero / John Blake Publishing Ltd:

Review The Wonderful Adventures of Mrs Seacole in Many Lands (Penguin 20th century classics) / Penguin Classics:

Review Big Boys' Rules: SAS and the Secret Struggle Against the IRA / Faber and Faber:

Review When Thunder Rolled: An F-105 Pilot Over North Vietnam / Presidio Press:

Review Napoleon / Pimlico:

Review One Unknown: A Powerful Account of Survival and One Woman's Inspirational Journey to a New Life / Rodale International Ltd:

Review Brothers in War / Ebury Press:

Review This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen (Penguin Twentieth Century Classics) / Penguin Classics:

Review Spy Princess: The Life of Noor Inayat Khan / The History Press:

Review Pius XII: The Hound of Hitler / Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd.: