Adrien Brody, Oscar for best actor for his role in "The Pianist" -

RONALDGRANT / MARY EVANS / SIPA

Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 2002,

 Roman Polanski's

The Pianist

depicted the life of Wladyslaw Szpilman.

Renowned musician, the Polish Jewish composer achieved worldwide notoriety thanks to the feature film based on his autobiography, published in some forty languages.

Several items that belonged to him, such as a silver pocket watch and a fountain pen, will go on sale next week in the Polish capital.

"This watch and this pen bought during a trip to Paris in 1937 survived with him throughout the ghetto period, then accompanied him to the ruins of Warsaw," his son Andrzej, who has organized the auction with his brother Krzysztof.

The watch, fountain pen and tie, which is now in the Polish Museum of the History of the Jews of Poland, are the only objects that belonged to Mr. Szpilman to have survived the war.

The watch is mentioned in a poignant passage from the book.

When Mr. Szpilman is discovered by a German officer, Wilm Hosenfeld, he asks him to play the piano for him.

The musician obeys and plays a piece by Chopin.

The officer then helps him survive by bringing him food.

“To thank him, towards the end, my father wanted to give him this watch as a token of gratitude.

The German took offense and refused, ”explains Andrzej Szpilman.

For saving Wladyslaw Szpilman, among others, Wilm Hosenfeld was posthumously recognized as “Righteous Among the Nations” by the Yad Vashem Memorial in 2009.

Narrowly saved

Like all Jews in Warsaw, the pianist and his family had to settle in 1940 in the Warsaw ghetto, created by the Germans.

Szpilman survives by playing the piano in cafes that have remained open.

In 1942, members of his family were sent to the Treblinka extermination camp where they were murdered.

He himself is barely saved by a Jewish policeman.

After remaining in the ghetto for some time, before it was annihilated by the Germans, he managed to get out in 1943, just before the ghetto uprising and its bloody repression.

He survives the last two years of the conflict with the help of friends, tossed from one hiding place to another before landing in an empty apartment, where he will remain cut off from the world for long weeks, during the Warsaw Uprising, August to October 1944.

"These objects could save his life"

For Renata Piatkowska, chief collections manager at the Polin museum, the objects on sale tell "the story of her life, of her survival, of her miraculous rescue from the Holocaust" but also "the story of an entire people. .

"

“These objects are also important because Szpilman chose them, small and valuable, because they could guarantee his survival.

He could sell them, pay whistleblowers (…) These objects could save his life, ”she explains.

Another valuable piece from this auction scheduled for Tuesday at the Desa Unicum House is the Steinway grand piano that belonged to Wladyslaw Szpilman after the war.

The watch and the pen are estimated between 10,000 and 16,000 zlotys (approximately 2,240 to 3,590 euros) while the piano could reach 140,000 to 260,000 zlotys (31,400 to 58,300 euros).

"As a museologist, I regret that this collection can be dispersed", explains the person in charge of Polin.

“I really hope that the pen and the watch will join his tie (…) and that we can tell this story in our exhibition”, she adds.

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  • Cinema

  • Poland

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  • Auctions

  • Auction

  • Piano

  • Second World War

  • Holocaust