Compare And Contrast Night And The Pianist

Night and the Pianist It is said to be true that the Holocaust was one of the most tragic and significant events in recorded history. Personal memoirs like Night by Elie Wiesel, and The Pianist by Wladyslaw Szpilman gives vivid images and clear views on those epic catastrophes, which allows us as readers to acquire a better understanding of what really transpired during the 1940’s. Elie Wiesel, the author of Night, wrote his book on a collection of personal experiences that molded his life. He was about twelve years old when his entire world was turned upside down. In the spring of 1944, the German army occupied Hungary (Night, Wiesel). A series of oppressive laws were forced on the Jews—the community leaders were arrested, Jewish valuables
Szpilman was a very talented pianist for the Polish Radio (The Pianist). Władysław Szpilman and his family, along with all other Jews living in Warsaw, were forced to move into a "Jewish District"—the Warsaw Ghetto (The Pianist). Once all the Jews were confined within the ghetto, a wall was constructed to separate them from the rest of the city (The Pianist). Szpilman managed to find work as a musician to support his family. One day, the Szpilman’s get deported the death camps, but they are fooled about what is really coming their way (The Pianist). A friend of the Szpilman family was a part of the police force that was directing the Jews to the trains, grabbed Wladek from the group and told him to run, separating him from his family forever (The Pianist). Szpilman spent the rest of his days in hiding, and also as a laborer in the ghetto. Throughout The Pianist, the motif and theme of loss of faith and loss of identity are frequent in the novel and the movie. Wladek quoted, "Mother looked dreadful, although she was apparently fully in control of herself. Her hair, once beautiful and always carefully tended, had hardly any colour left in it and it was hanging down in strands over her careworn wrinkled face. The light in her black eyes seemed to have gone out, and a nervous twitch ran down from her right temple and over her cheek to her mouth. I had never noticed it
"A Bridge between Wladyslaw Szpilman and Wilm Hosenfeld." Epilogue. The Pianist: The Extraordinary True Story of One Man 's Survival in Warsaw, 1939-1945. New York: Picador, 1999. 211-22. Print.
- - -. "A Bridge between Wladyslaw Szpilman and Wilm Hosenfeld." Epilogue. The Pianist: The Extraordinary True Story of One Man 's Survival in Warsaw, 1939-1945. New York: Picador, 1999. 211-22. Print.
Polanski, Roman, dir. The Pianist. R.P. Productions, 2002. Film.
- - -, dir. The Pianist. R.P. Productions, 2002. Film.
Szpilman, Wladyslaw. "The Umschlagplatz." Chapter 9. The Painst: The Extraordinary True Story of One Man 's Survival in Warsaw, 1939-1945. By Wladyslaw Szpliman. Trans. Anthea Bell. New York: Picador, 1999. 98-107. Print.
- - -. "The Umschlagplatz." Chapter 9. The Painst: The Extraordinary True Story of One Man 's Survival in Warsaw, 1939-1945. By Wladyslaw Szpliman. Trans. Anthea Bell. New York: Picador, 1999. 98-107. Print.
Wiesel, Elie. Night. Trans. Marion Wiesel. New York: Hill-Farrar, 2006. Print.
- - -. Night. Trans. Marion Wiesel. New York: Hill-Farrar, 2006. Print.
- - -. "The Nobel Peace Price Acceptance Speech Delievered by Elie Wiesel in Oslo on December 10, 1986." Oslo, Norway. 10 Dec. 1986. Night. By Wiesel. New York: Hill-Farrar, 2006. 117-20.