The Pianist is a memoir of a man who survived the Holocaust. His name was Wladyslaw Szpilman. Szpilman lived in Warsaw, Poland with his family which consisted of his mom, his dad, his two sisters and his brother. They were Jewish. Warsaw had more than 1.5 million people in the population before the war. Approximately 400,000 were Jewish. Szpilman was a pianist for a Polish radio station when the Nazi’s invaded the city. Szpilman was performing Chopin’s Nocturne when a German bomb hit the station, and the Polish Radio went off the air. German authorities relocated Jews into ghettos, where they struggled to find food and shelter. Szpilman's family struggled in the ghetto. Szpilman supported his family by playing the piano in ghetto cafes and restaurants. After a few months, Jews were told that they had to be relocated to Concentration Camps, the Szpilman’s were going to Treblinka. While the family was waiting in line to board the train, someone pulled Wladyslaw aside and saved his life; unfortunately, the rest of his family wasn’t as lucky. After he was rescued, he was forced to work for the Germans in harsh conditions in the ghetto. Szpilman knew winter was coming, and that he didn’t have adequate clothes for the winter. He was afraid he was going to get …show more content…
The author uses dates to talk about the aspects of the Holocaust. November 1940, is an essential date to the book because that was when the Warsaw ghetto was sealed off. August 31, 1939, is a significant date in the book because this is when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party invade and annex Poland. In January and February 1940, Nazis released new decrees, “they first announced that a Jew was to do two years of labor in concentration camps, where they would receive ‘appropriate social education.'” On page 58 the author explains the harsh conditions of concentration camps by saying “everyone was to do six days’ physical labor a month.” The author uses critical dates and other ways of expressing the aspects