The Pianist is a gripping read about one man’s story as a pianist in Poland during World War II. Unlike The Diary of Anne Frank, in the foreword of this book, we found out that Wladyslaw Szpilman survived the war. The foreword was written by his son, who lets us know that his father wrote the book right after the war had ended. The son also mentions how his father wasn’t an author before writing the story. I recognized this in the book because at times it was hard to follow.
The story takes place in Warsaw, Poland. Wladyslaw was working for Polish National Radio when the explosions got too severe and the station was destroyed. His family was all living together in a flat on the third story of a building. When he arrived home they were packing up their belongings to move, but they turned on the radio and heard that the UK and France declared war on Germany. This made them think that the war would come to an end soon. However, things didn’t work out that way. More and more injustices began to happen against the Jews. They were eventually all corralled into a ghetto, and walls were built around it so no one could escape. In the ghetto, Szpilman worked in various cafes as the pianist.
One day things took a turn for the worst, and Szpilman and his family were forced to the train station along with thousands of other Jews, where they would be herded onto trains that would lead to concentration camps. However, Wladyslaw was saved from the train because of his piano playing. When he returned to the ghetto, he went into hiding, and hid in various spots for years. At one point, a Nazi officer helped him and let him go because of his talent on the piano. The Nazis soon left where he was hiding, and he was able to go back outside to greet fellow Polish citizens.
I thought that this book was very memorable. There were many things I learned about what people had to go through during World War II, many of them horrifying. I felt like I was able to connect myself with Szpilman and have a sense of what it must have been like for him and other Jews at the time. I think it significantly helped that I play the piano myself, just obviously not as sophisticated and graceful as he does. I love my family so much, and when I read that he had to watch his family board a train to their deaths while he was being saved, that was heart-braking and you could feel the pain he was feeling in that moment. The book left me speechless at some parts.
To conclude, I think this was a great book, and I would recommend peers to read it. It gets hard to read at times, but by the end you will learn a lot of information that you probably didn’t know before. You’ll also be able to make a connection to the character of Wladyslaw Szpilman whether you’re a pianist or not, but I can’t imagine living in that time and seeing the terrible things he saw. Definitely a worthwhile read.
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