El pianista del gueto de Varsovia
Wladyslaw Szpilman
Publicado: 1946 | 182 páginas
CrĂłnica Memorias

Con la llegada de la segunda guerra mundial y la invasión de Polonia en septiembre de 1939, un músico polaco de origen judío, Wladyslaw Szpilman, ve como su mundo se derrumba. Con la noticia de que Gran Bretaña y Francia se han aliado contra Alemania, la familia Szpilman celebra una gran cena en espera del final de la guerra. Pero eso nunca pasa… La calidad de vida de los judíos en Polonia va empeorando poco a poco, afectada por una serie de limitaciones sociales y de derechos, y finalmente en 1940 son obligados a abandonar sus hogares para ser recluidos en un gueto, famoso hoy por su historia, en Varsovia. Allí Szpilman trabaja como pianista y se convierte en el sostén de la familia. También colabora con la resistencia evitando a duras penas ser apresado por los alemanes. Finalmente su familia es trasladada en un tren de ganado a un campo de exterminio, mientras él prosigue su vida intentando escapar a este fatal destino. Para ello, sale del gueto y se adentra en la parte aria de la ciudad ayudado por amigos polacos. Así está mucho tiempo, pero al final es descubierto en su escondite por un oficial alemán quien, tras escucharle una interpretación del «Nocturno en do sostenido menor» de Chopin, en un piano desafinado, decide perdonarle la vida.

haunting and powerful memoir of survival during the Holocaust. Szpilman's firsthand account of his experiences hiding from the Nazis in the Warsaw Ghetto and later in abandoned buildings and houses is both heartbreaking and inspiring. His perseverance and will to survive in the face of unimaginable horror is truly remarkable. The vivid descriptions of the atrocities committed by the Nazis are chilling and stay with you long after you finish reading. The Pianist is a must-read for anyone interested in understanding the human experience during one of the darkest periods in history. ( )

Good holocaust survival memoir. Pretty good film too. ( )

The subtitle is all the synopsis anyone needs: The Extraordinary True Story of One man’s Survival in Warsaw, 1939-1945.

Szpilman was a pianist who performed on Polish radio. He was, in fact, playing Chopin’s Nocturne in C-sharp Minor, live on the radio on Sept 23, 1939, when shells exploded outside the station. It was the last live music broadcast from Warsaw that day; a German bomb hit the station, and Polish radio went off the air. Ultimately, the Nazi’s plan for extermination of the Jews would take all of his family, but Szpilman would manage – by luck, courage, tenacity, and the kindness of others – to stay hidden and survive. The most unlikely person to help him was a German officer who came across him in the ruins of a building scrounging for food.

He wrote his story shortly after the war was over, but it was suppressed for decades, finally being published in 1999, and even then, not in Poland. The edition I had included entries from the diary of Captain Wilm Hosenfeld, the German officer who saved Szpilman towards the end of the war.

Szpilman’s story is told in a very straightforward manner. He recounts the ever-increasing restrictions imposed by the government on Jews, the forbearance and belief that “this is bound to pass” among his family and others in the community, the terror and horror of witnessing (or being subject to) random acts of violence and death. And yet, there is a certain cool detachment. Almost as if he were witnessing someone else’s story rather than reliving those experiences himself. In the forward, his son Andrzej supposes that his father wrote the memoir “… for himself rather than humanity in general. It enabled him to work through his shattering wartime experiences and free his mind and emotions to continue with his life.”

I found it engaging and gripping. Even though I knew he survived, I simply could not stop reading.

The extraordinary memoir was adapted to film in 2002, starring Adrien Brody (who won the Oscar for his performance) and directed by Roman Polanski (Oscar for Best Director). ( )

Brilliant. Moving. A must read. ( )