Dear Educator:Roman Polanski’s THE PIANIST – awarded Best Picture honors (the Palme d’Or) at the 2002

Cannes International Film Festival and a Golden Globe nominee for Best Picture - Drama – offers youand your students an unprecedented opportunity to study the way in which art can give meaning andhope to people even in the bleakest of times.

THE PIANIST is based on the true story of Wladyslaw Szpilman, an acclaimed pianist and aPolish Jew, who survived the Holocaust in Warsaw through an extraordinary combination of faith,courage, luck, and the will to live. The film recreates Szpilman’s experiences with meticulous historicalaccuracy, from the moment when his live radio performance was broken off by a Nazi air raid to his triumphant return to the airwaves and the concert stage at the war’s end. Along the way we followSzpilman and his family into the Warsaw Ghetto, and watch as he is plucked from the line that took therest of his family to the Treblinka death camp. We see him risk death with other Jewish resistance fighters as they plan the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, then join him in the lonely hiding places where, formore than two years, with the help of non-Jewish protectors, he evaded capture while the city of Warsawcollapsed around him. And we witness his astonishing encounter with a Nazi officer who listened to themusic Szpilman held within him and helped him survive the war’s final days.

But THE PIANIST is not only the story of a Holocaustsurvivor. It is the testimony of a survivor as well. RomanPolanski also lived through the bombing of Warsaw and, whenbarely seven years old, escaped the Cracow Ghetto anddeportation to the death camps by squeezing through abarbed-wire fence and hiding with a non-Jewish family. Hischildhood memories of those times, his emotional ties tothose who did not survive them, are in this film as well,adding the impact of lived reality to the drama of Szpilman’sremarkable story.

This free study guide, made possible by FocusFeatures, is designed to help you include THE PIANIST in yourhistory, social studies, philosophy, psychology, religious studies, and film studies classes. The guide includes fourreproducible activity sheets that lead students step by stepthrough the stages of Szpilman’s story, raising questions thatwill provoke critical thinking about the choices he made andencourage an imaginative response to his soul-testing experiences. The activity sheets also provide students with atimeline charting key events of the Holocaust and World War II,and a list of resources for further study.

We encourage you to share this study guide with other teachers in your school. Though the materials are copyrighted, you have permission to reproduce all components of the guide for educationalpurposes.

Please also take a moment to fill out and return the reply card enclosed with this guide, sothat you can remain eligible to receive free LearningWorks educational programs in the future. Wedepend on your comments to assure that our materials meet your needs and provide students with atruly worthwhile learning experience.

Sincerely,

Dr. Dominic KinsleyEditor in Chief

THE

PIANISTA ROMAN POLANSKI FILM

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IntroductionBased on the true story of a Holocaust survivor, THE PIANIST takes viewers backto those times of fear, hope, and suffering,when a community of nearly half a millionWarsaw Jews was systematically destroyeduntil only about 20 remained. It is the storyof Wladyslaw Szpilman, an acclaimedpianist, who became one of those 20through an extraordinary combination offaith, courage, endurance, and miraculousluck.

A Focus Features presentation, in associationwith Alain Sarde and Robert Benmussa, of aRoman Polanski film, THE PIANIST starsAdrien Brody as Wladyslaw Szpilman,Thomas Kretschmann as Captain WilmHosenfeld, the Nazi officer who finally sealedSzpilman’s survival, Frank Finlay andMaureen Lipman as Szpilman’s father andmother, Emilia Fox as Dorota, the non-Jewishwoman who helped Szpilman survive outsidethe Ghetto, Ed Stoppard as Szpilman’sbrother Henryk, and Julia Rayner and JessicaKate Meyer as his sisters Regina andHalina. Based on the memoir written byWladyslaw Szpilman just after the end ofWorld War II, with a screenplay by RonaldHarwood, THE PIANIST is directed by RomanPolanski and won Best Picture honors(Palme d’Or) at the 2002 CannesInternational Film Festival and is a GoldenGlobe nominee for Best Picture - Drama.

Target AudienceThis study guide is designed for high schooland college classes in history, social studies, philosophy, psychology, religiousstudies, and film studies.

Program Objectives� To enrich student viewing of THE PIANIST

by providing background information onthe Holocaust and the historical circum-stances surrounding this true story.

� To explore the meaning of the Holocaust,both for those who lived through it,whether as victims or perpetrators, andthose who live with its legacy today.

� To examine the moral choices faced bythose caught up in the Holocaust andweigh our own efforts to cope with prejudice against their example.

� To bear witness to the lessons of theHolocaust through the experiences of asurvivor who shared the horror and thehope of those who perished.

Using the ProgramComponents

� Provide photocopies of the enclosedclassroom activity sheets to all studentsin your class. Share a photocopy of thisteacher’s guide and the activity sheetswith other teachers in your school.

� The program’s activities trace thestages of Wladyslaw Szpilman’s storyas told in THE PIANIST and should bepresented in their numbered sequence.

� Plan to use the activities both as prepa-ration for viewing the film and as a basisfor discussion afterward. The activitysheets include timelines that will helpstudents identify historical events thatoften occur with the immediacy of livedexperience in the film, and help themplace these events in the broader context of World War II. The activitiescan also help focus student attention onkey episodes in the film and provide aset of reference points for follow-upreflection and discussion.

� High school teachers should be awarethat, due to the intensity of the subject,THE PIANIST is rated R for violence andbrief strong language, which means thatviewers under age 17 should see it inthe company of an adult.

A C T I V I T Y O N E

Facing CatastropheThis activity introduces students to RomanPolanski’s THE PIANIST and provides somebasic background information on theHolocaust, including a timeline of the mainevents in Nazi Germany that foreshadowedpersecution of the Jews in all territoriesthat came under Nazi control. Reviewthese facts, which should be familiar tomost of your students, and that part of thetimeline that covers events during the firsttwo years of World War II (1939-40), pointing out how at every step the Nazicampaign for political domination includedtaking action against European Jews.

I. An Instinct for SurvivalPart one of the activity focuses onWladyslaw Szpilman (lad-iz-law shpeel-mann),exploring his character as portrayed in thefilm by contrasting his response to prejudice with those of his non-Jewishfriend Dorota, and his brother Henryk. Ingeneral, students should discover thatSzpilman, while not a man to withhold judgment, is inclined to value human relationships over absolute standards ofright and wrong. His actions are guided by

respect for and devotion to others, andgauged to resolve the immediate crisisrather than make a point. For him, life goeson after what others might regard as a climactic scene, and he aims to preservethe fabric of life – the bonds that tie us toone another – against circumstances thatcould tear it apart. This more than any-thing, perhaps, makes him a survivor, forno matter how bleak the situation, he lookspast it in hope for the future.

Suggested Answersa. When newly imposed restrictions against

Jews threaten his lunch date with Dorota,Szpilman puts her feelings ahead of hisown and tries to defuse the situation bytreating the moral outrage as though itwere no more than a social gaffe. In hisview, they need not let the forces of prejudice set the rules for their relation-ship. Dorota, on the other hand, sees the situation in more absolute terms and herfirst reaction is to ‘make a scene’ – dramatize her moral outrage by challengingthe restaurant’s policy. Though obviously motivated by affection for Szpilman, herresponse to some degree pushes himaside in favor of what he stands for.

b. When the Jewish policeman, Itzak Heller,offers Szpilman and his brother, Henryk,good paying jobs on the force, Szpilmantries to ignore the man’s deeply offensiveassumption that he is willing to collaboratewith the Nazis for money and acknowledgeinstead Heller’s genuinely good intentions,the spirit behind this gesture of friendship,by declining with an explanation that healready has a job, as though this prior obligation were the only thing standing inhis way. Henryk, by contrast, treatsHeller’s offer as a personal insult andanswers with insults of his own, turningthe situation into a moral showdown.

c. To save his brother, Szpilman is willing tosacrifice his own self-respect and beg ItzakHeller for help. He puts his faith in their personal relationship, reaching out to theman inside the hated uniform in hopes ofprompting a reciprocal gesture. Henryk, bycontrast, will not look beyond the uniformand deeply resents the fact that he nowowes his life to a traitor. For him, this is aform of collaboration, and he would rathercut himself off from all personal relation-ships – take care of his own business –than risk such a moral compromise again.

II. Crisis SituationsPart two of the activity invites students toexamine their own moral reflexes in light ofSzpilman’s example by discussing howthey would respond to four prejudice-charged situations. Students might notethat these situations correspond in someways to those Szpilman faces in the film:coping with prejudice in a social setting,recognizing its presence in an otherwise

THE

PIANISTT E A C H E R ’ S G U I D E

appealing opportunity, and respondingwhen prejudice threatens physical harm.For some students, confrontation mightseem the appropriate course of action inall these situations, and they would beright to argue that prejudice cannot beeliminated until it is exposed. But, asSzpilman’s example may suggest, confrontation can also create a moraldead-end, leaving the situation itself unresolved and the individuals involvedmore sharply divided than before. In theend, students should realize that handlingsituations like these requires moral judgment, as well as moral conviction, andthat examining such situations from severalpoints of view is a way to improve moraljudgment, not an exercise intended to setthe moral course they should take.

Follow-Up1. Discuss the director’s use of point of view in

THE PIANIST, which enables us to see theseevents as personal experiences rather thanas historical examples. How does this tech-nique help us understand how people livedthrough what, from our perspective, seemhopeless times? How does it open our eyesto the human truth of events we might other-wise simply categorize as good or evil?

2. Have students report on life in the WarsawGhetto, where, despite the constant threatof starvation and disease, Jews managedto create a community and preserve manyof their social traditions. Students mightinvestigate, for example, the educationalsystem developed for children in theGhetto, the rich cultural life that includedfive theaters and weekly symphony concerts,the lively exchange of political views, or theimportance of books in Ghetto life, whetherthey offered the diversions of popular fictionor the rewards of serious study.

A C T I V I T Y T W O

Resisting HateThis activity explores the nature of resistanceduring the Holocaust, looking at episodesfrom THE PIANIST that are set against thebackground of two tragic turning-points inthe history of the Warsaw Ghetto: the1942 deportation of more than 300,000Ghetto inhabitants to the death camp at

Treblinka, and the 1943 Warsaw GhettoUprising. Use the timeline to help studentsplace these events in historical context, noting, for example, that the mass murder ofWarsaw’s Jews was but one part of a carefully orchestrated Nazi plan that included“research” into different means for genocide,construction of specially designed deathcamps, high-level bureaucratic planning, andcoordination of transportation resourcesacross Europe.

I. Passive HeroismThe activity starts with a question posed bya character in THE PIANIST that has troubledmany historians of the Holocaust: Why didn’tmore Jews fight back? The first part of theactivity examines explanations offered bytwo Holocaust victims, Emanuel Ringelblum,a chronicler of the Warsaw Ghetto who wasexecuted by the Nazis in 1944, and ElieWiesel, a Nobel Prize winner who survivedthe death camp at Auschwitz. Both find heroism and strength in the Jews’ non-violent response to their persecutors,reminding us that by not striking back theyprotected other members of the Jewish community from reprisals for their actionsand preserved their own humanity in themidst of an inhuman situation. The activityasks students to look at three episodesfrom the Szpilman family’s last hours together for evidence of this self-sacrificing,life-affirming form of resistance.

Suggested Answersa. Szpilman’s siblings reject a Nazi offer to

remain in the Ghetto and instead join theirparents at the railyard from which they willbe deported to Treblinka. Szpilman callstheir choice “stupid” because, unlike them,he knows where the day’s journey will end.But for his siblings, this was not a choicebetween life and death. They saw it as achoice between separation and sharing theirfamily’s fate, whatever it might be. By theiractions, they resisted the Nazi pressure toput self-preservation above everything, putting their faith instead in the human values of family life, despite the self-sacrificethat required.

b. When Szpilman’s father gathers the family’slast pennies to buy a piece of candy theycan share, he effectively acknowledges that

they will not need money where they aregoing and exchanges their cash for some-thing more valuable, a moment that reaffirms their pleasure in one another andthe bonds that hold them together.Resisting the destructive forces that surround them, he stages a family ritual to celebrate what they have preserved – theirlove, their loyalty to one another, and theirfamily identity.

c. Szpilman’s decision to accept Heller’s spontaneous gift of life might seem to be achoice for self-preservation over family loyalty. But Szpilman knows at this pointthat his family is doomed and that his survival is the only way to preserve even aremnant of what their life together hasstood for. Although his first and strongestimpulse is to rejoin them, he recognizesfinally that he must sacrifice those attach-ments and act instead to help them survivein him. By so doing, he resists the pressureto see this as a hopeless situation in whichhe must preserve his own sense of integrityat all costs and accepts the responsibilityto preserve his family’s hope for the futureas a survivor.

II. Taking ActionThe second part of this activity looks at thequestion of resistance from the other side,focusing on the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising inwhich Jewish fighters struck back at theNazis and battled to the death againstimpossible odds. Students should recognizethat by taking a stand these heroes servedas inspiration for others and proved withtheir lives that the spirit of resistance couldnot be destroyed. At the same time, theymight recognize Szpilman’s decision toleave the Ghetto as another form of activeresistance, since he too is striking back atthe Nazis with his life, deliberately placinghimself in jeopardy in defiance of their edictsand power. And like the Ghetto fighters,Szpilman also serves as an inspiration toothers, reinforcing the spirit of resistance inthe non-Jews who help him survive.

Follow-Up1. Have students research the history of the

Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and report on uprisings at other Ghettos, concentrationcamps, and even at some death camps. In

October 1943, for example, Jews stagedan armed revolt at the Sobibor deathcamp, and in October 1944 Jews atAuschwitz succeeded in blowing up oneof the death camp’s crematoriums.

2. One of the seemingly bleakest memoirsof the Holocaust is Elie Wiesel’s Night.Have students read this short book with aspecial eye for Wiesel’s descriptions ofthe small acts of kindness that preservedhumanity in the midst of inhumanity andkept his main character’s hopes alive.

A C T I V I T Y T H R E E

Life in HidingThis activity focuses on Szpilman’s experience during the last years of theHolocaust, when he lived in hiding withthe protection of non-Jews active in thePolish resistance. Use the timeline tohelp students place this chapter ofSzpilman’s story in historical context, andpoint out how, when the military struggleturned against them, the Nazis still keptup their assault on European Jews, finding ways to continue the killing evenas they were forced to retreat.

I. The Search for MeaningPart one of this activity invites studentsto enter imaginatively into the world of isolation and fear that was Szpilman’sexistence during his years in hiding tolearn where he might have found the willto survive. Admittedly, this is the mostmysterious part of Szpilman’s story, forwe cannot really even imagine what itmeans to wait day after day in fear of discovery or starvation and still live outevery day in hope that the wait will end.Yet by dramatizing this experience, THEPIANIST offers a glimpse into the mysteryand a starting point for exploring its significance.

Suggested Answersa. In addition to bewilderment, Szpilman

may feel the workings of providence in hisreunion with Dorota and find reason tohope that all the episodes of his past lifeare leading, however unpredictably,toward a future.

b. The piano also represents a connection toSzpilman’s past and an opportunity to reaffirm the meaning his life had then,though he cannot fully realize that meaningby actually playing the piano now.

c. Again, we can imagine that Szpilmansees Dorota as an agent of providencewhen she rescues him from starvation,and as a precursor of his own survivalwhen she tells him that she is escapingWarsaw for a safe haven in the country.

d. Witnessing the defeat of the Warsawresistance fighters likely reminds

Szpilman of the earlier failure of theGhetto uprising and makes his survivalseem more precarious than ever. Yet atthe same time he must see their deadbodies in the street as a grim admonitionthat, as a survivor, he too must fight on.

e. Szpilman’s escape to the abandoned hospital involves a series of near fatalencounters with Nazi troops, the mostgruesome of which is his feigning deathamong the corpses on the street to avoida Nazi patrol. We might imagine that, inreflection, he saw this rising from the deadas another sign that he would survive.

II. The Courage to CareThis part of the activity focuses briefly onthe role non-Jews played in helping survivors like Szpilman emerge from theHolocaust. After providing students withsome background on the honor roll ofthese “Righteous Among the Nations”kept at Yad Vashem in Israel, the activityasks students to imagine a similar storyof rescue in our times, not one, perhaps,that involves risk of death for the rescuer,but one that illustrates how a single individual can make a life-preserving difference by having the courage to care.

Follow-Up1. Students can further explore life in hiding

by reading or re-reading the diary of AnneFrank, who survived more than two yearswith her family in an Amsterdam hidingplace before an informant revealed themto the Gestapo. “In spite of everything,”she wrote, “I still believe that people arereally good at heart,” leaving a testimonyto the instinct for meaning that sustainshuman life.

2. Have students visit the Yad Vashem website to learn more about the “RighteousAmong the Nations,” many of whom areprofiled there. Students might alsoresearch the individuals behind some ofthe most famous rescue efforts mountedduring the Holocaust: Raoul Wallenberg inHungary, Varian Fry in France, ChiuneSugihara in Lithuania, and OskarSchindler in Poland.

A C T I V I T Y F O U R

SurvivorsThis final activity focuses on the climax ofTHE PIANIST, when Szpilman’s survivaldepends on his musical talent and themusic of Chopin, which stir the humannature of the Nazi officer who finally discovers him. Use the list of books andweb sites included on this activity sheetto encourage students to learn moreabout the Holocaust and its historic significance.

I. ReflectionThis part of the activity asks students toreflect on the relationship betweenSzpilman and Captain Wilm Hosenfeld,the Nazi officer who chooses to let himlive. Students may not at first recognizethat there is a relationship between thesetwo men, seeing the episode only asanother lucky break in Szpilman’scharmed life. But Szpilman is not the onlyone who benefits from this encounter, forby trusting Hosenfeld he gives him notonly an opportunity for moral action butalso the respect his uniform has longdenied him, breaking the Nazi stereotypeto let Hosenfeld live as a free man. In thissense, both Szpilman and Hosenfeldstand as survivors at this moment,Szpilman a survivor of hate’s power todestroy others, Hosenfeld a survivor ofhate’s power to destroy the soul.

II. RemembranceThis part of the activity reminds studentsthat THE PIANIST is not only the story of aHolocaust survivor but also a story told by a Holocaust survivor, Roman Polanski,who escaped the Cracow Ghetto as a boyand lived through the war in hiding with anon-Jewish family. The activity sheetincludes a note from Polanski explainingwhat his personal experiences contributedto the film and why he chose Szpilman’sstory to bring those experiences to life.Students are invited to write their ownnote or journal entry in response toPolanski after they have viewed THEPIANIST, telling how the film affectedthem and describing the episodes thatrevealed for them the deepest lessons ofthis dark time in human history.

Follow-Up1. Have students listen to the piece

Szpilman plays for Hosenfeld in the film,Chopin’s Ballad No. 1 in G Minor (Op. 23),and try to describe what the music saysabout the will to survive. Chopin wrote thepiece at a time (1836) when Poland wasstruggling for independence, and someearly listeners heard in it a call to continuethat struggle. To our ears, it may speak ofa more general impulse to prevail againstadversity and keep hope alive to the end.

2. Invite students to compare THE PIANISTwith other films that tell a story about theHolocaust (e.g., Sophie’s Choice [1982]directed by Alan J. Pakula, Au Revoir LesEnfants [1988] directed by Louis Malle,Schindler’s List [1993] directed by StevenSpielberg). Explore, for example, howthese films treat the heroes and villainsof each story, how they shape and selectevents to produce a dynamic plot, as wellas themes they have in common.

© 2003 Focus Features. Created by LearningWorks.

Roman Polanski’s THE PIANIST is the story ofWladyslaw Szpilman, an acclaimed pianistand a Polish Jew, who lived through the

Holocaust in Warsaw, where a population of closeto 500,000 Jews was all but eliminated, leavingonly about 20 survivors.

The Holocaust is the term now used to describeNazi Germany’s systematic campaign to destroythe Jews of Europe – an official policy, enactedinto law and carried out by civil and militaryauthorities, that began with persecution andended in the extermination of 6 million men,women, and children. The Holocaust’s victimscame from almost every European nation, but thekilling was concentrated in Poland, which washome to more than one-third of Europe’s Jewsbefore the war. By the war’s end, 90 percent ofPolish Jews – some 3 million people – had beendestroyed by a combination of hunger, disease,enslavement, terror, and mass murder.

The timelines provided on these activity sheets will help you track the events of the Holocaustdramatized in THE PIANIST. The film itself, however,focuses on the experience of living through thoseincomprehensible times — the fear, hope, horror,and confusion that marked Szpilman’s days during his five-year struggle to survive. ThroughTHE PIANIST, we can share this experience, anddiscover the lessons it holds for us today.

I. An Instinct for SurvivalHow did Szpilman survive? From the first momentsof THE PIANIST, when he attempts to keep playingfor Warsaw’s radio listeners in the midst of a Naziair raid, we see that Szpilman has an unusualcapacity to withstand the shock of catastrophe. Andin the months that follow, as catastrophes mountand Warsaw’s Jews are eventually confined in awalled Ghetto, this survivor’s instinct repeatedlysets him apart. Use the episodes described here toexplore Szpilman’s reactions to the destructiveforces gathering around him by comparing hisbehavior in these situations with that of his sympathetic non-Jewish friend Dorota on the onehand, and his cynical brother Henryk on the other.What guides Szpilman’s response in thesemoments of crisis?

a.When Szpilman finds that Jews are forbidden inthe restaurant where he planned to take Dorotafor a date, he apologizes for the inconvenience.She denounces the Nazis’ anti-Jewish laws andsuggests that they confront the restaurant manager.

b.When the Jewish policeman, Itzak Heller, offersSzpilman and his brother jobs with the policeforce so they can afford to feed their family,Henryk mocks and reviles him, while Szpilmananswers that he already has a job playing pianoat a cafe in the Ghetto.

c.When Szpilman learns that his brother has beentaken for deportation to a forced labor camp, hebegs Itzak Heller for help, but when Henryk learnswhat he has done, he accuses Szpilman of groveling to the hated Nazi collaborator and warnshim not to interfere in other people’s business.

II. Crisis SituationsFew of us ever confront prejudice as vicious as that which fueled the Holocaust, but we can findourselves in situations that challenge our belief insocial equality and seem to require a response.Consider the situations described below. Discuss inclass how you would respond to each situation andwhat impact you think your actions might have.Then imagine how a person with Szpilman’s temperament might respond to each situation andhow the situation might play out.

a.At a party, one of your friends is jeered for beinggay.

b.You are invited to join a prestigious fraternity thathas never admitted an Asian-American student.

c.You see a Hispanic friend arguing with a group ofAfrican-American students who say she is sittingat their table in the lunchroom.

d.While you’re watching news from the MiddleEast, you hear a friend say that the world wouldbe a safer place if all Muslims were eliminated.

THE HOLOCAUST1933Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Partycomes to power in Germany.The Nazis declare a nationalboycott of Jewish businesseson April 1 and expel Jewsfrom all official posts and cultural enterprises (music,film, journalism, etc.).1935Nuremberg Laws depriveJews of German citizenshipand forbid marriage or anysexual relations between Jews and non-Jews.1938Kristallnacht (Nov 9): Nazi-organized night of anti-Jewishriots. In the followingmonths, Nazis close Jewishnewspapers, expel Jewishchildren from public schools,ban Jews from museums,parks, and theaters, andtransfer Jewish property tonon-Jewish owners.1939Aug – Nazis sign a non-

aggression pact with SovietRussia.

Sept 1 – Nazi and Soviet invasion of Poland marksthe beginning of World War II.

Sept 21 – Nazis draft a step-by-step plan for the destruction of Polish Jews.

Nov – Nazis concentrate Jewsfrom towns across Polandin the large cities.

Dec – Polish Jews ordered towear a Star of David, prohibited use of public transportation, parks, and sidewalks, and required toprovide two years of forcedlabor.

1940Apr – Nazis invade Denmark

and Norway.May – Nazis invade

Netherlands, Belgium,Luxembourg, and France.

Aug – Nazis attack GreatBritain.

Oct – Warsaw’s Jews forcedinto a Ghetto, eventuallywalled in with bricks, whichhouses nearly 500,000 inan area of approximately200 city blocks. Hunger,disease, and Nazi raidsbegin killing thousandseach week.

A C T I V I T Y O N E

Facing Catastrophe

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In Roman Polanski’s THE PIANIST, when theNazis begin emptying the Warsaw Ghetto, herding Jews to the Umschlagplatz railyard for

deportation to the death camp at Treblinka, one ofthe old men speaking with Szpilman’s father asks:

Why don’t we attack the Nazis? There’s half amillion of us here, we could break out of theGhetto. At least we could die honorably, not asa stain on the face of history.

Coming nearly three years after the Nazis hadseized control of Warsaw, and on the brink of annihilation, the old man’s question may seem toolate, but in fact it is a question that still haunts historians of the Holocaust today. Why didn’t moreJews fight back? Why did so many seemingly comply with every Nazi demand, even marchingdutifully to their own destruction?

I. Passive HeroismOne answer to these questions comes from theWarsaw Ghetto itself, in the writings of EmanuelRingelblum, who chronicled events there until hewas himself executed in 1944:

In no place did Jews resist the slaughter. Theywent passively to death...so that the remnants ofthe people would be left to live, because everyJew knew that lifting a hand against a Germanwould endanger his brothers from a differenttown or maybe from a different country....Not to act, not to lift a hand against Germans,has...become the quiet, passive heroism of thecommon Jew.

Another, related answer is provided by Elie Wiesel, asurvivor of the Auschwitz death camp. “In thosetimes,” he has said, “one climbed to the summit ofhumanity simply by remaining human.” Resistinghate, resisting the impulse to attack, was to resistthe inhuman forces of the Holocaust itself and preserve the bonds of human nature – hope andcompassion – that unified the Jewish community.

Consider in this light the actions of Szpilman andhis family on that terrible day when they were herd-ed to the railyard for deportation to Treblinka. Towhat extent could each of the episodes describedhere be regarded as an act of resistance?

a.Szpilman’s siblings, who had been selected toremain in the Ghetto, rejoin the family, sayingthey could not bear to be separated, a decisionSzpilman calls “stupid.”

b.Szpilman’s father collects the family’s last penniesto buy a piece of candy, which he carefully dividesinto six pieces so they all can have a share.

c.On his way to the rail car, Szpilman is pulled outof line by the Jewish policeman, Itzak Heller, whotells him, “I’ve saved your life! Go!” With one lastanguished look back at his family, Szpilman reluctantly slips away.

II. Taking ActionWarsaw was also the site of the most effectiveattempt by Jews to strike back at the forces of theHolocaust, the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, in which afew hundred Jewish fighters, armed mainly with pistols and homemade grenades, defended the Ghetto against Nazi tanks and artillery for nearly amonth.

In THE PIANIST, Szpilman takes an active part insmuggling arms for this planned uprising, but hedoes not take part in the fighting itself. Instead, having glimpsed an old acquaintance on one of hiswork assignments outside the Ghetto, he soughtshelter with non-Jewish friends and escaped into hiding. When the uprising occurs, Szpilman can onlywatch from his hiding place as the Nazis shell theGhetto to rubble and execute his former comrades. “I should have stayed there and fought with them,”Szpilman says, but then, considering the outcome,asks, “What good did it do?”

How would you answer this question? What is thegood of armed resistance if it ends in failure? Shareyour opinions in a class discussion, then comparethe good you see in the uprising with the goodSzpilman achieved through his escape. To whatextent could his decision to leave the Ghetto beregarded as an act of resistance too?

THE HOLOCAUST1941June – Nazis break non-

aggression pact and invadeSoviet Russia. Killingsquads, calledEinsatzgruppen, follow theadvance, executing Jews inall areas that come underNazi control. By the end ofOctober, 250,000 havebeen murdered.

Oct – Nazis construct deathcamps in Poland atAuschwitz, Chelmno,Belzec, Sobibor, Majdanek,and Treblinka for the massexecution of Jews, Gypsies,and other “undesirables.”

Dec – Japanese attack onPearl Harbor draws U.S.into the war.

1942Jan – Wannsee Conference

launches the Nazi’s “FinalSolution to the JewishQuestion” – a secret planto systematically extermi-nate all European Jews.Nazis begin transportingJews from all occupied territories to the deathcamps in Poland.

July – Warsaw’s Jews aretransported by cattle car tothe Treblinka death camp.By September more than300,000 are gassed. Onlythose considered still fit forforced labor or able to finda safe hiding place avoidextermination.

1943Apr – Warsaw Ghetto

Uprising begins when Nazisarrive to deport the Jewsstill living there. Jewishfighters hold out againstshelling and fire bombsuntil late May, when all buta handful are finally captured and executed. InSeptember, the Ghetto isdemolished. Similar uprising occur in otherPolish Ghettos and even insome death camps, but allsuch armed resistance isquickly crushed and followed by severereprisals.

A C T I V I T Y T W O

Resisting Hate

© 2003 Focus Features.Created by LearningWorks.

Though cut off from his old life when he enteredthe Warsaw Ghetto, Szpilman was still surrounded by his family, and even when he

lost them, he found comrades in the resistance.Once he escapes the Ghetto, however, Szpilman isalmost totally alone. To survive now he must somehow endure the fear and suffering on his own.

I. The Search for MeaningDuring his more than two years in hiding, Szpilmanpasses the days waiting for one of his protectors tobring him food, careful not to make any noise thatwould betray his presence. When a protector is latein coming, he starves rather than risk going out intothe street. What did Szpilman think about over thoselong months of isolation? What gave purpose to hisexistence and sustained his will to survive?To explore these questions, imagine that Szpilmankept a diary during his life in hiding. For each of theepisodes described below, write a diary entry thatreflects what you think Szpilman felt at the time andwhat meaning the episode may have held in his life.a.Forced to flee his first hiding place, Szpilman

goes to the emergency address he was givenand finds Dorota, the non-Jewish woman withwhom he once hoped to develop a relationship,now married to a member of the anti-Nazi underground. She and her husband agree to findhim a new hiding place.

b.Drawn to the piano in his new hiding place,Szpilman sits and moves his fingers above thekeyboard so as not to make a sound.

c.Placed in the care of an irresponsible protector,Szpilman almost starves to death, but he is rescued when Dorota and her husband come tosay good-bye on their way to a safe haven in thecountry.

d.From his window, Szpilman watches as Polishresistance fighters launch their attack againstthe Nazis, forcing them to retreat, then sees theNazis regroup and retake the neighborhood, gunning down the resistance fighters and leavingtheir bodies in the street.

e.When the Nazis shell his hiding place, Szpilmanbarely escapes to a nearby abandoned hospitalby hiding among the dead bodies still strewn onthe street.

II. The Courage to CareLike Szpilman, many Jews were rescued from theHolocaust by the efforts of non-Jews willing to risktheir own lives in order to save another. These individuals are now honored as the “RighteousAmong the Nations” at Yad Vashem, the Holocaustremembrance center in Israel, where the names of19,141 rescuers have been inscribed – a reminderthat, whatever the odds, one person can alwaysmake a difference.On the back of this sheet, describe a present-day situation, real or imaginary, where you could be theone person who makes a real difference in some-one’s life. It might be a situation that involves having the courage to resist peer pressure andrespect someone victimized by stereotyping. Or itcould be a situation that requires only the courageto reach out to someone whom most people treatas a non-person or simply ignore. Turn your situationinto a story or news report in which you, or someonelike you, shows the courage to care.

THE HOLOCAUST1944Jan – Soviets force a Nazi

retreat at Leningrad (nowSt. Petersburg) and beginadvancing on Nazi territory.

May – Nazi’s begin deportingHungarian Jews to Poland’sdeath camps, the lastnational group slated fordestruction.

June – D-Day invasion atNormandy; U.S. and Britishforces prepare to advanceon Nazi territory.

July – Soviet troops liberateMajdanek death camp.

Aug – Warsaw Uprising:Polish fighters, Jewish andnon-Jewish, hoping for support from nearby Soviettroops, fail to drive Nazisfrom Warsaw when theSoviets hold their positions.

1945Jan – Soviets occupy Warsaw,

where it is estimated thatonly 20 Jews still survive.

Jan – Forced to retreat fromPoland, Nazis organizedeath marches to evacuateJews still held in death andwork camps.

Apr – Adolf Hitler commitssuicide after issuing a finaldirective: “Above all Icharge the leaders of thenation...to merciless opposition to the universalpoisoner of all peoples,international Jewry.”

May – Germany surrenders.Aug – U.S. drops atomic

bombs on Hiroshima andNagasaki.

Sept – Japan surrenders.

A C T I V I T Y T H R E E

Life in Hiding

© 2003 Focus Features. Created by LearningWorks.

Szpilman’s incredible story comes to an endwhen he is discovered in his final hidingplace by a Nazi officer, Captain Wilm

Hosenfeld, who is scouting the abandoned houseas a site for his headquarters. Unlike every otherNazi Szpilman has encountered, Hosenfeld doesnot shout out demands. “Who are you?” he asks,“What’s your work?” When Szpilman finallyanswers that he is a pianist, Hosenfeld leads himto a piano in a nearby room and asks him to play.

Though near starvation, dressed in rags, and morethan two years out of practice, Szpilman sits atthe piano and performs Chopin’s Ballad No. 1 in G Minor (Op. 23), a work by Poland’s most reveredcomposer that listeners have long interpreted asan expression of Poland’s unrelenting quest forfreedom. The performance transforms Szpilman,who regains the posture and poise of a great musician as he plays, and transforms him inHosenfeld’s eyes. Although he recognizes Szpilmanas a Jew, Hosenfeld allows him to continue hidingin the house and even brings him food.

I. ReflectionWhat do you imagine Hosenfeld saw in Szpilmanthat caused him to defy official Nazi policy andshow sympathy for the desperate man before him?Even more difficult to imagine, what could Szpilmanhave seen in Hosenfeld that would allow him totrust his life to a representative of the forces thathad sought to destroy him for more than five years?Discuss this episode in class, exploring the partmusic plays in bringing these two one-time enemiestogether as survivors of the worst that hate can do,both to those who feel it and to those who sufferits effects.

II. RemembranceThis scene reminds us that THE PIANIST is itselfthe work of a great artist who, like WladyslawSzpilman, survived the Holocaust in Poland. RomanPolanski was barely seven years old when the Nazisinvaded his homeland. Like Szpilman, he livedthrough the bombing of Warsaw, then went to theCracow Ghetto, where he escaped the death campsby squeezing through a barbed-wire fence and hidingthrough the war years with a non-Jewish family.

Polanski has drawn on his own childhood memoriesof those terrible times, as well as historical archives,to present an authentic picture of the Holocaust inTHE PIANIST – not a documentary but a work of artthat brings past experience back to life.

Read the note from Roman Polanski reprinted here,and after you have seen the film, use the back ofthis sheet to write a note or journal entry tellinghim what you gained by looking through this windowinto an unimaginable experience. What momentsbrought insight into the human significance of theHolocaust? What episodes helped bring you intothe community of those who carry the responsibilityto never forget?

HOLOCAUST READINGSRoselle Chartock and Jack

Spencer, eds., Can ItHappen Again? Chroniclesof the Holocaust (1995).

Lucy Dawidowicz, The WarAgainst the Jews, 1933-1945 (1975).

Helen Fein, Accounting forGenocide Victims – andSurvivors – of theHolocaust (1982).

Anne Frank, The Diary of aYoung Girl (1952).

Viktor Frankel, Man’s Searchfor Meaning (1959).

Martin Gilbert, TheHolocaust: A History of theJews of Europe During theSecond World War (1985).

Claude Lanzmann, Shoah: AnOral History of theHolocaust (1985).

Emanuel Ringelblum, Notesfrom the Warsaw Ghetto(1958).

Wladyslaw Szpilman, ThePianist: The ExtraordinaryTrue Story of One Man’sSurvival in Warsaw, 1939-1945 (2000).

Elie Wiesel, Night (1960).

HOLOCAUST WEB SITESUnited States Holocaust

Memorial Museumwww.ushmm.org

Facing History and Ourselveswww.facing.org

Simon Wiesenthal Centerwww.wiesenthal.com

Yad Vashem: The HolocaustMartyrs’ and Heroes’Remembrance Authoritywww.yadvashem.org

© 2003 Focus Features. Created by LearningWorks.

A Note from Roman PolanskiI always knew that one day I wouldmake a film about this painful chapter in Polish history, but I did notwant it to be based on my own life.

As soon as I read the first chapter ofWladyslaw Szpilman’s memoirs, Iinstantly knew that The Pianist wouldbe the subject of my next film. I knewhow to tell it. It was the story I wasseeking: in spite of the horror, it is apositive account, full of hope.

I survived the bombing of Warsawand the Cracow Ghetto, and I wantedto recreate those childhood visions.It was also important for me to stickas close to the truth as possible andavoid Hollywood-style make-believe. Ihave never done, and don’t intend todo, anything autobiographical, but inmaking THE PIANIST I could use theexperiences I went through.

In addition to my own recollections, Icould rely on the authenticity ofSzpilman’s account. He wrote it justafter the war – perhaps that’s whythe story is so strong, so genuine,and so fresh. He describes the realityof this period with surprising – almostcool and scientific – objectivity. Thereare decent Poles and evil Poles in hisbook, decent and evil Jews, decentand evil Germans.

THE PIANIST is a testimony to thepower of music, the will to live, andthe courage to stand against evil.

A C T I V I T Y F O U R

Survivors