On his way with his family to be transported, Szpilman was dragged out of the line by a member of the Jewish police who recognised him.

The Nazis started to liquidate the ghetto and began to transport its occupants to the Treblinka death camp.

As Jews, Szpilman and his family were confined to the ghetto, where Władysław helped keep his family alive by performing in the few cafes that functioned, but that came to an end in 1942. PAPĪs anybody who has seen ‘The Pianist’ knows, Szpilman’s world was brought crashing down by the Nazi occupation of the Warsaw in 1939. Pictured (L) with famous violinist Bronisław Gimpel. It was Polish Radio’s last live music broadcast until 1945 when Szpilman started the same piece of music at the point he had had to stop nearly six years earlier.īy the mid-1930s Szpilman had become something of a celebrity, touring the country as a soloist or accompanied by violinists. Szpilman was performing a work by Chopin on Septemwhen German shelling forced him to stop. In 1935 he started working for Polish Radio, a collaboration that would span the war and spread the fame of his name even further. By the mid-1930s he had become something of a celebrity, touring the country as a soloist or accompanied by violists. He was prolific writer of musical compositions that could range from jazz to classical, he also penned hundreds of songs, and his talent was such that after the war he regained the fame he had won before it had started.īorn in Sosnowiec on December 5, 1911, Szpilman studied piano at Warsaw’s Conservatory of Music and soon made his mark on the city’s cultural scene. After the end of the war Szpilman resumed his career, writing music and songs, and becoming very much part of the cultural landscape of post-war Poland.įor many the name of Władysław Szpilman will forever be associated with the ‘The Pianist’, the Roman Polański film about a Jewish musician’s battle to survive the war, and the unlikely help he got from a German officer.īut there is much more to Szpilman’s life than just the few years covered in the celluloid hours of Polanski’s film.

The Pianist by Władysław Szpilman