It is the crux of the film.
The German officer appears bemused to find the starved man in rags and - having just watched two hours of maniacal brutality - the viewer must expect that Wladyslaw Szpilman’s miraculous odyssey through occupied Warsaw, detailed in the film, The Pian
o, is about to come to a bloody end. In that instant, as the German actor Thomas Kretschmann confidently looks down on Adrien Brody, who plays Szpilman, it is impossible to surmise what the soldier is thinking. As anyone who has seen the film or read the book of The Pianist knows, the German soldier questions the emaciated scavenger and asks him what his job was before the war.
When Szpilman replies that he was a pianist, he orders him to prove it on a piano that remains intact in the house. Whatever was in his mind before is erased by Szpilman’s rendition of Chopin’s Nocturne in C sharp minor, and he provides the pianist with the food, shelter and clothing to see out the remaining few weeks of the war.
But the question remains; was his kindness driven by altruism, opportunism, or was it the arbitrary act of a man who has had the power of life and death over people deemed worthless by the Nazis for the last four years?
If the film leaves this question to the viewers’ imagination, the argument is being played out for real in Israel, where the Holocaust Martyrs and Heroes Remembrance Authority (Yad Vashem) has refused to recognise the actions of Wilm Hosenfeld, the soldier who saved Szpilman, despite the pianist’s testimony and the entreaties of his family, because they believe the German may have shed the blood of innocents at other times during the war.
"Wilm Hosenfeld was an officer in the Germany army. He was stationed in Warsaw for four years, during which time many large-scale atrocities occurred," says Dr Mordecai Paldiel, a director of Yad Vashem. "During this time, he rose in rank from sergeant to major. You have to ask yourself several questions, especially, ‘what else did he do in Warsaw other than save Wladyslaw Szpilman?’."
The Szpilman family would like Hosenfeld to be recognised as a Righteous Gentile by Yad Vashem, an authority set up by the State of Israel to honour non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews. It is Israel’s equivalent of an honorary knighthood and the most famous Righteous Gentile is Oscar Schindler. More than 19,000 others, from peasants to priests have also been recognised making them eligible for Israeli citizenship and a generous pension.
Szpilman died in 2000 at the age of 88. By 1939, he had become a well-known concert pianist. The film begins with him playing Chopin’s Nocturne in C sharp minor for Polish radio but the recording is stopped as the Luftwaffe carries out its first raid on Warsaw. The Szpilman family, non-observant Jews, are removed from their jobs, abused in the streets, moved to the Warsaw ghetto and finally transported to Treblinka. The pianist is recognised by a Jewish auxiliary policeman, who hauls him from his family as they are forced onto the cattle trucks, saving his life in the most cruel way.
Szpilman has to rely on countless others as he is moved from ghetto to safehouse before being forced to fend for himself as Warsaw is reduced to rubble when the whole city rises against the occupier. After being saved by Hosenfeld, Szpilman tries to return the favour but without knowing his name, there is little he can do. The film ends with Szpilman returning to Polish radio to continue his Chopin recording.
Hosenfeld was captured by the Red Army and stood trial for war crimes. Found guilty, he was sentenced to death, which was commuted to 50 years’ hard labour. He died in 1952 in unknown circumstances. The German’s son Detlev, says that it was wrong for Yad Vashem to use the Soviet conviction to blemish his father’s name. "It is well-known that the NKVD (Stalin’s secret police) fabricated charges and forced confessions in 1949 and 1950. In 1950, my father tried to appeal against his conviction but his right was refused," he says.
Andrzej Szpilman, the son of the pianist, also disregards the convictions and says that all the available evidence suggests that Hosenfeld had consistently used his position as a German officer to help Jews and other people threatened by the Nazis. The two families became acquainted after Hosenfeld’s wife contacted the pianist. As the pianist bid farewell to Hosenfeld, he said: "If anything happens to you, if I can help you then in any way, remember my name, Szpilman, Polish radio."
The pianist, who became a celebrity again in Poland, organised a meeting with the head of the Polish secret service, who offered platitudes but did nothing. It was the least he could do for the man he described as "the one human being wearing a German uniform that I met".
Later, in 1998, Detlev Hosenfeld was present at the Szpilman home in Hamburg when Szpilman signed his testimony, requesting that Wilm Hosenfeld be recognised as a Righteous Gentile. But Paldiel warns of being blinded by Hosenfeld’s good deed. "We recognise what Hosenfeld did for Wladyslaw Szpilman and we applaud it but the title of ‘Righteous among Nations’ is Israel’s highest honour and we have to set a high test for it. It is not enough to do a good thing, one must not have done other bad things as well. We know of many people who were involved in the Holocaust that also saved people and we cannot rule out that any person, even a criminal, may somewhere have a soft spot in his heart."
When Yad Vashem first received Szpilman’s testimony regarding Hosenfeld, it began making inquiries. It found that Hosenfeld had joined the Nazi party in 1935 and was drafted into the army as a sergeant in 1939. By the end of war he was a major. Hosenfeld’s first responsibilities included organising recreation for German troops stationed in Warsaw but he later became an adjutant to General Stahl, the military commander of Warsaw. According to Paldiel it is difficult to imagine that he could avoid dirty work and be promoted. As the adjutant to the general, he was involved in a unit responsible for interrogating Poles captured during the Warsaw uprising in 1944.
"We don’t know precisely what Hosenfeld did during these interrogations but we do know that Nazi interrogations were often not humane," says Paldiel.
During his time of hard labour, Hosenfeld, according to his family, was taunted and beaten for his claim to have saved a Jew. However, Paldiel says the charges against Hosenfeld could not be ignored without investigation. "We are not in the habit of dismissing things only because they were done by the Russians. The Russians did not try every German officer for war crimes yet they tried Hosenfled and sentenced him to death."
It is possible that there are records which could clear Hosenfeld’s name. Court transcripts are believed to be languishing in Minsk, the capital of the former Soviet republic of Belarus, but numerous requests for access by Yad Vashem have been ignored. Other evidence of Hosenfeld’s kindness do exist. A woman in Australia testified that he saved her brother, Leon Warm, after he escaped from a train bound for Treblinka. Hosenfeld sheltered him and procured him false papers. "Hosenfeld first saved Jews in September 1939, and he continued to do it throughout the war," says Andrzej Szpilman. "To my knowledge, he helped at least four people and I think there were probably many more. I know that we owe a lot to Mr Hosenfeld. Without him, my father would not have survived and this film could not be made."
Szpilman points out that in Hosenfeld’s diaries, published with the latest edition of the book of The Pianist, the officer emerges as a sympathetic character. He was a school teacher and initially supported Hitler because he felt Germany had been humiliated by the Treaty of Versailles. As the war began and the brutality escalated, he became disillusioned. As the war nears its end, he writes that all Germans will have to pay for the crimes of the Nazis. Hosenfeld’s pocket diaries, which in themselves could have put his life in danger, suggest that his kindness to Szpilman was in character.
But Roman Polanski, the director of The Pianist, himself a Polish Jew who survived the Holocaust, is ambiguous in his portrayal of Hosenfeld. The German appears smart and powerful and questions Szpilman without any hint of his intention. He toys with Szpilman, as if deciding whether to kill him or save him. His decision to help the pianist after hearing him play appears either idiosyncratic or opportunistic. He knows the war is all but over and the actions of the Nazis will soon be scrutinised and this is not the time to alienate any potential saviour. We can only wonder what would have happened if Szpilman had played Chopsticks rather than Chopin.
Andrzej Szpilman does not share this view of Hosenfeld and believes that Israel’s refusal to recognise his humanity stems from the fact he was a German officer.
"They just don’t want to recognise a German soldier as a human being. Ultimately, I don’t care about it. They have made themselves irrelevant. At least three million people have read the book and they will know the truth."
Yad Vashem insists its decision is not final and that Hosenfeld may be declared a Righteous Gentile. If the transcripts of Hosenfeld’s trial reveal the charges to be fabricated, a tree may be planted in his honour in the Avenue of the Righteous Gentile at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Park on the outskirts of Jerusalem. However, it is more likely that the transcripts will offer little clarity and Hosenfeld’s humanity, like that of millions of Germans who lived through the Nazi regime, will remain a grey area.
The Pianist is released in January.
