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A public Domain photo of Władysław Szpilman by

Top 10 Remarquable Facts about WÅ‚adysÅ‚aw Szpilman 

Władysław Szpilman was born on 5 December 1911 and died on 6 July 2000. He was a Polish pianist and classical composer of Jewish descent. Szpilman is widely known as the central figure in the 2002 Roman Polanski film The Pianist.

The film was based on Szpilman’s autobiographical account of how he survived the German occupation of Warsaw and the Holocaust. So, in the article are the top ten remarquable facts about WÅ‚adysÅ‚aw Szpilman.

1. He was a popular performer on Polish radio

photo of Szpilman by Narodowe Archiwum Cyfrowe –

Polskie Radio Spółka Akcyjna is Poland’s national public-service radio broadcasting organization owned by the State Treasury of Poland. Szpilman became a popular performer on Polish radio and in concert.

After World War II, Szpilman resumed his career on Polish radio. Szpilman was also a prolific composer; his oeuvre included hundreds of songs and many orchestral pieces.

Szpilman started playing for Polish Radio in 1935 as their house pianist. In 1939, on 23 September, Szpilman was in the middle of broadcasting when Germans opened fire on the studio and he was forced to stop playing.

This was the last live music broadcast that was heard until the war’s end. After World War II, Szpilman resumed his career on Polish radio.

When Szpilman resumed his job at Polish Radio in 1945, he did so by carrying on where he left off six years before: poignantly, he opened the first transmission by once again playing Chopin’s Nocturne in C-sharp Minor.

Szpilman was also a prolific composer; his oeuvre included hundreds of songs and many orchestral pieces.

2. Szpilman studied piano at music academies in Berlin and Warsaw

Aleksander Michalowski photo by StanisÅ‚aw Brzozowski –

Szpilman began his study of the piano at the Chopin Academy of Music in Warsaw, Poland, where he studied piano with Aleksander Michałowski and Józef Śmidowicz, first- and second-generation pupils of Franz Liszt.

In 1931 he was a student at the prestigious Academy of Arts in Berlin, Germany, where he studied with Artur Schnabel, Franz Schreker, and Leonid Kreutzer.

3. Why did Szpilman return to Warsaw?

A photo of Adolf Hitler by an Unknown Author –

Since the 18th century, Berlin has been an influential musical center in Germany and Europe. You must be wondering why then would Szpilman, return to Warsaw where music was not that advanced instead of sticking his foundation in Berlin.

After Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany in 1933, Szpilman returned to Warsaw. So it was because Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany that he returned to his homeland.

WÅ‚adysÅ‚aw Szpilman was a Polish pianist and classical composer of Jewish descent. Antisemitism played a major role in Adolf Hitler’s thinking and Nazi ideology. This is what inspired Hitler’s hatred of Jews. Szpilman was a jew and so he could not continue living in Berlin under Adolf Hitler who hated Jews.

4. He rose to fame when he returned to Warsaw

A photo if Ida Haendel by Jellepieterdeboer –

After his relocation to Warsaw by Adolf Hitler, his career was never doomed. He quickly became a celebrated pianist and composer of both classical and popular music. Primarily a soloist, he was also the chamber music partner of such acclaimed violinists as Roman Totenberg, Ida Haendel, and Henryk Szeryng.

In 1934, he even toured Poland with U.S. violinist, Bronislav Gimpel. Bronislav Gimpel was a Polish-American violinist and teacher. He was born in Lemberg, Austria-Hungary, part of Polish Galicia, to a family of Jewish origin.

5. He was among the confined Jews from the Nazi regime

A photo of Szpilman by Autor nieznany –

WÅ‚adysÅ‚aw Szpilman and his family, along with all other Jews living in Warsaw, were forced to move into a “Jewish quarter”, the Warsaw Ghetto on 31 October 1940. Once all the Jews were confined within the ghetto, a wall was constructed to separate them from the rest of the Nazi German-occupied city.

Szpilman managed to find work as a musician to support his family, which included his mother, father, brother Henryk, and two sisters, Regina and Halina. He first worked at the Nowoczesna Cafe, where the patrons sometimes ignored his playing to conduct business, as he recalled in the memoir.

6. It is because of discrimination that he lost his family

Everyone in his family was deported in 1942 to Treblinka, an extermination camp within German-occupied Poland roughly 80.5 km northeast of Warsaw.

A member of the Jewish Police assisting in deportations, who recognized Szpilman, pulled him from a line of people including; his parents, brother, and two sisters being loaded onto a train at the transport site.

None of Szpilman’s family members survived the war. Szpilman stayed in the ghetto as a laborer and helped smuggle in weapons for the coming Jewish resistance uprising.

Szpilman remained in the Warsaw Ghetto until 13 February 1943, shortly before it was abolished after the deportation of most of its inhabitants in April–May 1943.

7. Irena Sendler was one of the activists that directly helped Szpilman

A photo of Irena Sendler by Mariusz Kubik –

TOP 10 FASCINATING FACTS ABOUT IRENA SENDLER

After the death of his family, Szpilman Szpilman found places to hide in Warsaw and survived with the help of his friends from Polish Radio and fellow musicians such as Andrzej Bogucki and his wife Janina, Czesław Lewicki, and Helena Lewicka supported by Edmund Rudnicki, Witold Lutosławski, Eugenia Umińska, Piotr Perkowski, and Irena Sendler.

For those of us who have read about Irena Sendler, you are quite aware that Irena Stanisława Sendler was a Polish humanitarian, social worker, and nurse who served in the Polish Underground Resistance during World War II in German-occupied Warsaw. She gave great assistance to Szpilman.

8. Chopin’s Nocturne No. 20 in C♯ minor saved Szpilman saved his life

Frederick Chopin photo by Louis-Auguste Bisson –

Szpilman evaded capture several times. Beginning in August 1944, Szpilman was hiding out in an abandoned building at Aleje Niepodległości Street 223. In November, he was discovered there by the German officer, Captain Wilm Hosenfeld.

To Szpilman’s surprise, the officer did not arrest or kill him; after discovering that the emaciated Szpilman was a pianist, Hosenfeld asked him to play something on the piano that was on the ground floor. Szpilman played Chopin’s Nocturne No. 20 in C♯ minor.

After that, the officer brought him bread and jam on numerous occasions. He also offered Szpilman one of his coats to keep warm in the freezing temperatures. Szpilman did not know the name of the German officer until 1951. Hosenfeld died in a Soviet prisoner of war camp in 1952.

9. Szpilman wrote many compositions

From his early Berlin years, Szpilman never gave up the will to write music, even when living in the Warsaw Ghetto. His compositions include orchestral works, concertos, and piano pieces, but also significant amounts of music for radio plays and films, as well as around 500 songs.

More than 100 of these are very well known as hits and evergreens in Poland. In the 1950s, he wrote about 40 songs for children, for which he received an award from the Polish Composers Union in 1955.

Szpilman’s compositions include the suite for piano “Life of the Machines” 1932, Violin Concerto 1933, “Waltzer in the Olden Style” 1937, film soundtracks: “Åšwit, dzieÅ„ I noc Palestyny” (1934), Wrzos (1938) and Doctor Murek (1939), Concertino for Piano and Orchestra (1940), Paraphrase on Own Themes (1948) “Ouverture for Symphonic Orchestra” (1968) and many very popular songs in Poland.

10. Szpilman wrote the book called The Death of a City

Szpilman Uprising Museum photo by Adrian Grycuk –

The Death of a City was written by Wladyslaw Szpilman and elaborated by Jerzy Waldorff shortly after the war ended. It was first printed in 1946 by the publishing house Wiedza. The book was censored by Stalinist authorities for political reasons.

Szpilman died of natural causes in Warsaw on 6 July 2000, aged 88. He is buried at Powązki Military Cemetery. On 25 September 2011, Polish Radio’s Studio 1 was renamed for Władysław Szpilman.