History of human kind show us that people cannot live together without great conflicts and wars. For hundreds of centuries, there have been wars conducted by some people against the others in many places in the world. What are the reasons for armed conflicts? We can choose from the wide variety of them. They may be political, ethnic, religious or even peaceful. Most dangerous and violent are these wars, which are supported by all peoples, not only by the politicians. Such was for example the second world war.
Roman Polański in his movie 'The Pianist' shows us the life of great Jewish artist- Władysław Szpilman- and especially his struggles during the war.
Szpilman spent the second world war in Warsaw, which was under the German occupation. At that time, the Germans were supposed to separate the Jews from other people and make them live in closed districts. There, in the ghettos, the Jews lived very poor lives and were fully controlled by the soldiers.
In Polański's movie, we could see, how life in ghettos looked like. This picture tells us that it was not much different from the life of other Poles. Some Jews had money and could work and even employ other people. There were also many bad people among them. One of Szpilman's friends became a member of the police forces in ghetto and he worked helping the Germans catch the Jews and get them to camps, where most of them were exterminated. However, most Jews were trying to help each other and did everything to save their lives.
The life story of Szpilman is very interesting. During the war, he meets many different people, who help him survive. One of them is the German officer, who happens to hear Szpilman play the piano and decides to help him. His help really saves Szpilman's life. We can see Germans as human beings here. Not all of them were cruel and thoughtless.
I was really touched by this movie. It is the more important for me, because in my family there were many people, who fought and died in the war. And my grandparents always said that some of the Germans proved to be really good people.
