Information on the Pianist

I did research on the Pianist by Wladyslaw Szpillman. It was a very well known book and liked by many people. There was no research that said the author had wrote any other books besides The Pianist which was later made into a movie. I believe the reason he did not write any other books is because the only book he ever wrote was a biography. About his life during World War II and his job as Pianist. Nothing in my research showed that the book received any type of award, but I know the movie won many awards and Adrien Brody won an Oscar for his role in The Pianist. Also it was rated five out of six stars.

Becuase my author has traveled all around the world, her experience and knowledge played a big role in this novel. Also, because her father was involved with the military, I think she had an interest in this topic. Some elements from Lowry's life that are included in the novel are the main characters are kids like her's. Lowry liked to write about her kids because she loved them and enjoyed spending time with them. An aspect Lowry didn't include is the amount of moving and traveling her family did when she was a kid. I think she excluded this because it would not be very interesting to read a book where the characters are always moving. Finally, I consider this book to hbe very authentic because it portrays real events and real emotions that children and families were going through during the Nazi Era. If the author can relate and reel in the reader, I consider it to be a good, succesful book.

Lois Lowry was born in 1937 in Honolulu, Hawaii. Because her father was a career army officer, Lowry moved around as a child. She lived in several different countries including Japan. She attended Brown University, where she was a writing major, but left college before graduation to get married. Lowry's marriage did not last, but she had four children who became inspirational in her work. She finished her college degree at the University of Maine and worked as a housekeeper to earn a living. Lowry worked as a photographer and she also wrote textbooks. For her first novel, A Summer to Die, Lowry received the International Reading Association Children's Book Award in 1978. Number the Stars is one of more than twenty young adult novels Lowry has written. Number the Stars was abased on actuall avents, but Lowry added her on fictional take to it.

Source: Lowry, Lois. "Biography." Lois Lowry. Interact, 2011. Web. 27 May 2011.
     <http://www.loislowry.com/bio.html>.

Summary: the Pianist

Recipe for a Jew who Survived

Ingredients:
1 c. Courage
1 tsp. Musical Talent
3 c. Bravery
1/2 c. Instincts
1 Tb. Connections
2 c. Intelligence
3 c. Luck

Tools needed:
Szpilman's Family- Halina, Regina. Henrik, Mother, Father
Cze3slaw Lewicki
Zbigniew Jaworski
Wilm Hosenfield, German soldier
The Umschlagplatz

Directions:
Place Musical Talent into Pot of Life to start off survival. Slowly mix in 3 c. Bravery to continue survival. Mix in Courage to enhance the Bravery. Add half the Luck to be saved from certain death. Add connections to escape the ghetto. Quickly mix in Instincts to save from being burned or blown up. Add rest of luck to escape death from a Nazi yet again. Final product should be a thin, worn out man who has survived a perilous 5 years in constant threat of being murdered.

This image shows how many of the street corners looked at the time of the Nazi rule.

Quote: "It was only in the fairy tales that people were called upon to be so brave, to die for one another. Not in real-life Denmark."
Question: Do you think that if you were called upon to fight and possibly die for your country, would you do it?

Due to difficulty in commenting, I have created a new post to answer the questions.

1. Obviously, the author's life experiences have influenced his story. Without surviving through the Holocaust, he would not have had this story to share.

2. The elements in Szpilman's life included in the book are any related to the Holocaust, mainly his survival throughout the war, but also what he did after the war. He included these so that he could tell the story.

3. Aspects of Szpilman's life that were not included in the book are any times from pre-Holocaust and his life afterwords. This is because both of these times are not relevant to the book.

4. Yes, I consider it to be authentic. This is because it is a memoir, not a novel, so everything that occured in it is true.

Alex Coletta

Relationship between Author and Text

Answer these questions regarding the posts on the authors' background.

• In what ways has the author's life experiences influence his or her story?
• What elements of his/her life are included in the book? Why do you think the author chose to include these in the story?
• What aspects of the author's life are not included in the book? Why do you think he/she did not include them?
• Overall, do you consider this book to be authentic? Why or Why not?

Szpilman General History

Wladyslaw Szpilman was a famous Jewish-Polish pianist who survived the Holocaust. In his early life, Szpilman studied piano at the Chopin School of Music in Warsaw, Poland. Later, he traveled to Berlin to study at the Academy of the Arts. As soon as Hitler seized power, Szpilman returned home and became a celebrated pianist. For a while, Szpilman worked as a pianist in restaurants to support his family, but eventually his whole family was sent to an extermination camp. Szpilman would have been sent too if it were not for a family friend who pulled Szpilman out of the waiting area and saved his life. Szpilman worked as a laborer in the ghetto and assisted in smuggling weapons for jews to rebel. Soon afterwords, the ghetto was shut down after most of its inhabitants had died and Szpilman was forced to go into hiding. Szpilman was able to survive the Holocaust and later wrote a memoir about it titled The Pianist. Szpilman died at the age of 88 on July 6th, 2000.

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W%C5%82adys%C5%82aw_Szpilman


alex coletta

Wladyslaw Szpilman's Music Career

Wladyslaw Szpilman was born into
a family of musicians. He first trained at the Chopin Music
School in Warsaw,
and then went to the Berlin Academy of Arts to continue his studies in piano
and composition. After returning to Warsaw, Szpilman earned a reputation as a
performer and composer, and became the house pianist for the Polish Radio. His
performance of Chopin’s Nocturne in C minor was the last live performance on
the Polish radio before it was closed down by bombardment from the Germans.
After miraculously surviving the war, Szpilman gained his old job back at the
Polish Radio. He also composed extensively and gave performances as a soloist
as well as in ensembles. He passed away in 2000, bearing the name of the most
popular musician of post-war Poland.

Sources:

"Music
and the Holocaust: Szpilman, Wladyslaw."Music and the Holocaust: Home.
Web. 26 May 2011. http://holocaustmusic.ort.org/places/ghettos/warsaw/szpilmanwladyslaw/.

"Szpilman's
Warsaw: The History behind The Pianist." United States Holocaust Memorial
Museum. Web. 26 May 2011. http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/focus/pianist/.

"That evening I touched a keyboard again for the first time in seven months. (...) My stiff fingers moved reluctantly over the keys and the sound was irritatingly strange, grating on my nerves."

What does Szpilman's playing reveal about his feelings about what he went through in the seven months?

Quote: "I was standing there looking ruefully at my thumb when I heard footsteps again. I swiftly set off for the attic once more, but this time it was too late. I found myself facing a soldier in a steel helmet carrying a rifle. His face was blank and not very intelligent."

Question: If you were in the situation, what would you do?

I would initially be very nervous and I would not know what to do. When I saw the soldier appear, I would become very frightnened and emotional. After I got by my initial fear, I would brainstorm ideas of how to get out of the situation. As soon as I came up with my idea, I would run and execute it.

At first, I would tyry to make up a lie, just like Szpilman did. I might say I was sent here by the Nazi froces to find something, like the half liter of spirits. Due to my appearance, there wouild be no lying about the fact that  i was Jewish. If this did not work, I would do just as Szpilman did and offer the half liter of spirits to him so he would let me live. If this worked, I would change my hiding place right after the Nazi left just in case he decided to tell the Germans where I was hiding. If the Nazi decided not to accept the bribe, obviously, there would be little that I could do at the time. Overall, it's easy to see that Szpilman did the exact same thing that I would have in this situation.

Quotation and Question

" I did not die. Obviously the tablets had not been strong enough after all." (pg.160)

Question: Do you think that he actually wanted to die?


I do not think that he wanted to physically die. I think that his emotions were so stirred up that he only thought it. Sometimes when people are feeling a certain way, they feel bad and say stuff they don't mean. This scene was a good example of this.

If you were confronted by a soldier on the street, what would you do?

A German soldier restrained from killing Szpilman because he was a musician. What does this say about German Nazi's?


To me, the answer is not clear. A possibility could have been that Szpilman was not associated with the war so there was no need for him to die. Another possibility is that the German Nazi's enjoyed music. Because they liked music, they would not want to kill a musician.

How do you think the author copes with the tragedies that happened to him/her?


I think that the author copes with the tragedies by thinking about something else and replacing the bad memories with good ones. Because of the young age of my character, I think this would have been easy to accomplish.  Next, when my character is with her friends she is very happy. Being surrounded by happy events and people would also help cope with the tragedies. 

How do you feel about the conditions the people had to live in? 

Key

Zoe- Purple
Alex- Grass Green
Manoriiiii- Aqua
Steven- Mustard