Wladyslaw Szpilman and Weronika Grynberg. Photos: wikipedia.org/east newsAndrzej Szpilman is set to take the Wydawnictwo Literackie publishing house to court after a newly released book claims that his father, Wladyslaw, the story of whom was made famous by Roman Polanski’s film ‘The Pianist’, collaborated with the Nazi authorities during World War II.
The book, entitled ‘The Accused Wiera Gran’ and written by Agata Tuszynska, is a biography of singer and actor Weronika Grynberg. During the war, she was moved to the Warsaw Ghetto, yet in 1947 was accused of collaborating with the Germans.
Both Szpilman and Grynberg are said to have worked together in the Sztuka café in the Warsaw Ghetto during the war.
During the post-war trial, Szpilman is to have testified by stating that at the time he did not hear anything about her supposed collaboration, and that he had found out about it only after the war was coming to an end.
Grynberg was cleared of the accusations in 1949.
J’accuse…
In 1980 Weronika Grynberg published her autobiography in Paris, in which she accused Wladyslaw Szpilman of helping the Gestapo and Nazi-sanctioned Jewish Police of deporting Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto. Szpilman then rejected the claims, although the case soon fell silent anyhow.
Tuszynska’s biography of Wiera Gran touches upon the accusation case, and the author has defended herself by stating that it is a book on Grynberg, and not about Wladyslaw Szpilman.
“The accusations against [Grynberg] were never proven, and further court cases exonerated her,” Tuszynska told the Rzeczpospolita daily.
Grynberg “does make statements about [Szpilman] using words that are unfavourable, drastic, and brutal. Should I have changed them? […] I am not responsible for what went on between them,” the author maintains.
Who to believe?
Szpilman’s name does not appear in any war-time German records, and when making his film on the famous pianist, Roman Polanski had to rely on Szpilman himself (pictured right, seated at the piano) to provide all the information he needed. A commentary in the Rzeczpospolita daily muses on who to believe: Szpilman or Grynberg?
The Wydawnictwo Literackie publishing house is not commenting the case. Andrzej Szpilman, however, is also thinking about taking the Gazeta Wyborcza daily to court for promoting the book, as well as filing against the Polish Academy of Sciences, which he believes is “spreading lies” about his father.
The Pianist
Wladyslaw Szpilman was born in 1911 in the Silesian town of Sosnowiec, which was then still part of Congress Poland.
Szpilman started working as a pianist for Polish Radio in 1935, with which he remained after the war as a music director.
During World War II, he survived thanks to his friends from Polish Radio as well as a German officer, Wilm Hosenfeld, who was honoured in 2009 by Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations.
Roman Polanski made a film based on Szpilman’s memoirs in 2002, although Szpilman himself had died two years previously at the age of 88. (jb)
Related story
New book full of ‘lies and libel’ says son of Wladyslaw Szpilman, thenews.pl, 5 Nov