36 pages • 1 hour read
Władysław SzpilmanThe Pianist
Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 1946A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 10-12Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 10 Summary: “A Chance At Life”
After his escape from the Umschlagplatz, Władysław encounters a relation who happens to be a Jewish policeman. He spends the night with the policeman and in the morning accepts a job from the Jewish Council. He works on a crew demolishing walls both within and outside the ghetto. In order to make some extra money, Władysław buys food and sells it at an increased ratewithin the ghetto. As he works, he encounters some old acquaintances, such as Tadeusz Blumental, a Jew who can pass as Aryan. Blumental offers to help Władysław escape, but the plan falls through when the people who promised to house Władysław discover he is a Jew. Władysław also encounters Jan Dworakowski, leader of the Warsaw Philharmonic, who informs Władysław directly that he will never see his family again.
Realizing that his family is fated to die, Władysław goes about his days “as if in a dream” (113). One day, a policeman stops Władysław’s crew to make a “selection” (114). Those on the right side of the group will live (including Władysław), while the policeman shoots all of those on the left side.
The Germans post announcements to state that 300,000 have been “resettled” and 100,000 are still left in the ghetto (114). Only 25,000 can remain in the city,including those professional workers, who are indispensable to the Germans. All those who are permitted to stay receive a piece of paper stamped with a number from the Jewish Council. Władysław receives such a paper and remains in Warsaw.
Chapter 11 Summary: “Marksmen Arise!”
With provisional permission to stay, Władysław moves into shared “cells” with other Jews who are allowed to remain in Warsaw (116). He embarks on a series of labor assignments, first cleaning the yard of the Jewish Council building and then working at a remote SS barracks under extremely harsh conditions. Upon begging the commanding officer for a transfer, Władysław settles into a work detail at the SS commander’s palace with more favorable conditions. The project is run by a staff of Jewish architects and engineers.
Władysław is given permanent status to stay in Warsaw and he yet again moves to new living quarters. He worries what the impending winter will do to his hands: if he gets frostbite, he will be unable to play the piano.After spraining his ankle, he is reassigned to the stores inside, where it is warmer. There, he encounters a “sadistic” overseer nicknamed Thwick-Thwack, who punishes workers through whipping (121).
As rumors of more resettlement circulate, the Germans respond by allowing the Jews to elect delegates to move freely through the city to buy supplies from the Aryan side to bring back to the ghetto (a previously forbidden act). Around this time, resistance movements start up. Władysław’s working group chooses Majorek as a delegate, who will become a link between the Warsaw ghetto resistance movement and other outside organizations. Increased trade also brings in more news of the war, which lifts Władysław’s spirits.“Armed reprisals”by the resistance movement begin in the ghetto (122). The resistance murders a corrupt Jewish policeman and a Gestapo liaison.
Walking home on December 31, 1942, Władysław and his fellow workers encounter two drunken SS officers, one of whom is Thwick-Thwack. At first, the officers threaten the workers, then they command them to sing. The workers end up singing the “patriotic song…‘Hey, marksmen, arise!’” (125).
Chapter 12 Summary: “Majorek”
Jewish spirits rise briefly in the ghetto on January 1, 1943 when the Allies defeat the Germans in Stalingrad. Underground organization activity increases within the ghetto. Delegates like Majorek smuggle in ammunition hidden in bags of food supplies. While receiving the bags of ammunition, Władysław has a close call with a German soldier, who almost discovers the ammunition but is satisfied when he sees the food contained within the sacks.
Around January 14, Władysław notes of the ghetto: “a new phase of its liquidation had begun” (129). The Germans begin rounding up more future “concentration camp inmates” (128). Instead of just relegating themselves to Jews, the Germans move all over the city to round up its residents. Over the course of five days, the Germans round up 5,000 people. They have intended to round up 10,000, but are staved off by the Jewish resistance. For the first time, Jews fight from within the ghetto by firing back on the Germans with their smuggled-in ammunition.
Władysław worries that he will fall victim to another round of resettlement, so he enlists Majorek’s help to contact his friends, Andrzej Bogucki and his wife, Janina Godlewska. With them, he makes plans to escape the ghetto. On February 13, he slips out of the ghetto while the SS officers are occupied and takes refuge in an artist’s studio on Noakowki Street.
Chapters 10-12 Analysis
Władysław’s character undergoes trauma and transformation over the course of these chapters. As Chapter 10 opens, he notes,“I was aware of being torn irrevocably from everything that had made up my life until now” (108). Previously, his whole life had been about protecting his family and staying close to them. Now, he is on his own for the first time since the war began. His psyche suffers a deep blow when Dworakowski says that he will never see his family again. Władysław explains, “Dworakowski had destroyed the structure of self-deception I had so arduously maintained” (113). Up until this point in time, Władysław had been telling himself that the Jews were not fated to die, that resettlement signified just that—relocation, in order to work somewhere else. Here, he accepts the truth of the matter: the Germans are in the process of exterminating the Jews.
It is difficult for Władysław to process this news, and he notes, “It was all the same to me whether I lived or died” (113). Without his family and with the Germans in power, Władysław loses grip on the integrity and tenacity that had so informed his sense of self up until this point. This phase, however, does not last. He regains some of his previous spirits when the ghetto’s resistance movement takes hold. News from abroad of German defeat helps him to believe that all is not lost.
He reconnects to his will to live: “Gradually I recovered my spirits and my will to survive” (122). When he fears for his life in January 1943, he makes moves to escape the ghetto and fight for his life. Though his spirits and integrity are challenged, Władysław reconnects to some of the character that is present at the beginning of the war.
