Władysław “Władek” Szpilman (5 December 1911 – 6 July 2000) was a Jewish-Polish pianist, composer, and memoirist. Szpilman is widely known as the protagonist of the Roman Polański film The Pianist, which is based on his autobiographical book recounting how he survived the Holocaust. In November 1998 Władysław Szpilman was honoured by the president of Poland with a Commander's Cross Order with a Star of Polonia Restituta.
Szpilman studied piano in...
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Władysław “Władek” Szpilman (5 December 1911 – 6 July 2000) was a Jewish-Polish pianist, composer, and memoirist. Szpilman is widely known as the protagonist of the Roman Polański film The Pianist, which is based on his autobiographical book recounting how he survived the Holocaust. In November 1998 Władysław Szpilman was honoured by the president of Poland with a Commander's Cross Order with a Star of Polonia Restituta.
Szpilman studied piano in Warsaw and Berlin in the early 1930s. After Adolf Hitler seized power in Germany in 1933, he returned to Warsaw, where he quickly became a celebrated pianist and composer of both classical and popular music. Szpilman composed many pieces and soundtracks while touring Poland with his accompanying violinist, Bronislav Gimpel.
On 1 April 1935 he joined Polish Radio, where he worked as a pianist performing classical and jazz music, until the German invasion of Poland reached Warsaw in autumn 1939, and Polskie Radio was forced off the air. The...
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