The Pianist - The extraordinary story of one man's survival in Warsaw, 1939-45 (2002)

'You can learn more about human nature from this brief account of the survival of one man throughout the war years in the devastated city of Warsaw than from several volumes of the average encyclopaedia' Independent on Sunday 'We are drawn in to share his surprise and then disbelief at the horrifying progress of events, all conveyed with an understated intimacy and dailiness that render them painfully close'riveting' Observer 'The images drawn are unusually sharp and clear'but its moral tone is even more striking: Szpilman refuses to make a hero or a demon out of anyone' Literary Review 'You can learn more about human nature from this brief account of the survival of one man throughout the war years in the devastated city of Warsaw than from several volumes of the average encyclopaedia' INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY. The bestselling memoir of a Jewish pianist who survived the war in Warsaw against all odds. A Jewish pianist's real-life account of survival in World War II Warsaw. Separated in a mêlée, he fights to rejoin his family as they board the death train, but police block him. "Papa!" he cries. The father waves, "as if I were setting out into life and he was already greeting me from beyond the grave." This is the powerful memoir of a young Jewish pianist who survived World War II in Warsaw against all odds. Written immediately after the war, but suppressed by the Communist authorities in Poland, it is now published alongside extracts from the diary of the German officer who saved his life Wladyslaw Szpilman was a young Jewish pianist who, almost uniquely, managed to stay alive in Warsaw throughout World War II. Immediately afterwards, he wrote this account of his experiences during the war The powerful memoir of a young Jewish pianist who survived the war against all odds, alongside moving extracts from the diary of the German officer who saved his life I began my wartime career as a pianist in the Cafe Nowoczesna, which was in Nowolipki Street in the very heart of the Warsaw ghetto.