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 13-15Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 13 Summary: “Trouble and Strife Next Door”
Władysław stays in the Bogucki apartment for two weeks and then moves in with an engineer affiliated with Polish Radio. There, he touches a keyboard for the first time in seven months. He then goes to stay in the spare flat of Czeslaw Lewicki, a conductor and former colleague at the radio station. He remains there through June 1943 and notes, “I felt I was in paradise” (135). At first, Władysław spends all day in the bathroom, hoping to remain hidden, in case the Germans search the flat. When it becomes apparent that they are not, he moves more freely about the apartment, always taking care to be silent. Lewicki visits twice a week with food and news.
Władysław becomes depressed with the isolation and routine, but his spirits lift with the Allies’ victory in Africa. He also hears news of the continued Jewish resistance in the Warsaw ghetto.
One day in June, Lewicki urges Władysław to leave the flat. The Gestapo has sealed up Lewicki’s own room and is certain to come looking for Władysław. Feeling unable to search for a new hiding place, Władysław decides to stay and constructs a noose for himself, choosing suicide over German capture. He waits for days until the Gestapo invade his street and his building. They do not, however, enter the flat.
Chapter 14 Summary: “Szałas’ Betrayal”
Władysław remains secure in Lewicki’s flat, but his food supplies run very low.On July 18, he risks going out to buy a loaf of bread on which he then subsists for the next ten days. Lewicki’s brother arrives, promising to bring food and a change of location. He introduces an activist named Szałas to serve as Władysław’s caretaker and protector. He is, however, a “dubious protector” and only visits every ten days,andwith very limited amounts of food (142). Władysław suffers from malnutrition and develops jaundice as a result.
When a friend of Lewicki’s, Mrs. Malczewska, looks in on Władysław, he learns that Szałas had been collecting money for him all over Warsaw but has been keeping the money for himself. He receives some supplies from Mrs. Malczewska, but other residents of the building learn of his presence and hammer on his door one day, demanding he show he papers. Władysław slips out of the building and stays with another series of friends in the city. He stays briefly with the Boldoks and Jaworskis until he finds a more permanent place in the spare flat of Helena Lewicka on August 21, 1943. He remains there for the duration of the war, adhering to a daily routine of reading and studying English.
In June 1944, the Allies land in Normandy. On August 1, the Warsaw Rebellion begins, and Helena advises Władysław to seek shelter in the basement. He decides to remain in the apartment.
Chapter 15 Summary: “In a Burning Building”
The Warsaw rebellion begins with shooting in the streets, making the area around Władysław’s building very unsafe. Władysław communicates with a woman in the building who knows about his hiding. She tells him they must wait for help from the city center.
By August 11, “the nervous tension in the building rose perceptibly” (156). The fighting intensifies, and the Germans close in. On August 12, Germans order the tenants to clear the building, but Władysław remains. The Germans enter his flat, but he hides in the attic. A German tank fires at the building, and it is soon filled with flames and smoke.Władysław realizes that the whole building is going to burn and is convinced that he will die in the fire.
He decides to kill himself, planning to take sleeping tablets along with opium in order to ensure his death. After taking the pills, he falls asleep on the sofa before he can take the opium.
Chapters 13-15 Analysis
Władysław’s shows instability over the course of these chapters, moving from hope to despair and back again. After settling into Lewicki’s apartment, his spirits rise: “They had not found me, and I felt a new confidence” (135). He finds some enjoyment in his time at the flat, but soon grows weary. He notes, “Doomed to inactivity, spending most days alone with my gloomy thoughts, brooding over and over again on my family’s dreadful fate, I found my doubts and depression becoming worse” (137). Isolated and unstimulated, Władysław sinks into depression and loses hope.
His spirits improve when the Allies defeat the Axis in Germany and begins to think that the war might soon end. His hope is short-lived, however, when Lewicki informs him that he must move again since the Gestapo is looking for them.Rather than feeling desperate, he is calmly determined: “I would rather put an end to my life here than risk wandering the city again. I simply did not have the strength left for it” (138). He looks into his heart and knows that he does not want to engage in the struggle anymore. He calmly accepts his fate. The Germans do not find him, and he rallies some strength, in order to move through another series of flats. He settles into a routine in Helena’s flat, believing he will survive. However, when he is trapped in the burning building, he yet again returns to his acceptance of fate: “I was perfectly calm now, with a calm arising from my conviction that there was nothing more I could do to change the course of events” (158).
Art and music figure into these chapters. When Władysław escapes the ghetto, he once again encounters former colleagues who are musicians and artists of various types. He feels as if he connects to his people, thus regaining a sense of hope in this regard by reconnecting to his passion.While brief, his connection to the piano in the engineer’s flat is significant: it is the first time he has touched a piano in seven months. Though he does not immediately go back to playing, the piano is a sort of touch stone, connecting him however briefly back to that which is his passion. He describes his desire to reconnect with music when he stays in Lewicki’s flat. He hears the woman next door playing piano rather badly. He explains, “I often thought sadly how much I would give, and how happy I would be, if I could only get my hands on the tinny, out-of-tune piano that caused so much trouble and strife next door” (136). He never loses his mental grip on his musical calling.
