The motion picture,
The Pianist, is based upon the true life story of Wladyslaw Szpilman and his family. Mr. Szpilman was one of the most accomplished musicians in Poland before the Nazis attacked the country in 1939. The film does an excellent job of explaining why it became impossible for the Jewish people living in Europe to escape the Nazis and showcases the plight of hundreds of thousands of Jews forced to live in the Warsaw ghetto. What did you learn from the film that you did not know before?
25 comments:
I was very intrigued by the movie 'The Pianist' and I did learn a lot about the Jewish ghettos that I did not previously know. I had no idea that they actually built a wall around the entire Jewish section in the major cities in Poland, and across Europe. This movie definitely made that horrific idea come life. I was particularly disturbed by the fact that Nazi soldiers stormed into random houses and killed people, almost for fun. It was horrifying to watch the man in the wheelchair get thrown out the window and it nade me think of what I would have done in that situation if I saw it happen. I learned that the people living in the ghettos had to endure extreme hardship and death everyday, some could not handle it and actually went insane. I can't even begin to imagine the stress of watching people die around you, and not being able to help because you could be given the same fate. I learned that people valued work permits, and the particular family in the movie thought it would keep them alive and not sent away. I was also surprised at the amount of relocating they were made to do, they didn't even have time to really settle in, and as the years went on they were sent to places with worse conditions than the last until they were ultimately sent to a work camp. I admire the will power and the perseverance of the family in the movie because they were surrounded by people who had lost everything and they themselves had lost everything. I realized from this movie how easy it could have been to give up because the Nazi had the power to break even the strongest people. Stories like 'The Pianist' make a tremendous impact because they didn't give up even with the odds against them, and that's the bravest/only thing they could have done in their situation.
This film shed light on many differnt issues and questions I had revolving around the Holocaust. I wasn't fully aware of the extent of the ghettos condition. This movie depicted the harsh reality that the Jews were faced with. I didn't know how many people were being beaten and starving to death even before the camps were set up. I thought that for the most part people were killed in the concentration camps and not before. The movie showed me that people were slowly dying and going insane even before the camps. Because the dead bodies I though disease would be much more rampid but it wasn't really shown at all. I would like to learn more about the disease. I was completely suprised about the number of dead bodies in the streets. I didn't know that physical walls were built to separate the Jews from the other people living in Germany at the time. Thankyou for showing this film in class I will definitely finish it at some point.
I was absent
One thing in particular that I learned from watching the film The Pianist was that more and more freedoms were taken away from the Jews in occupied countries prior to them being forced to move into the ghettos. I had imagined it as more day-and-night rather than gradual changes. Something else that I learned from watching this film was that there was a literal wall built around the ghettos. I was not aware of exactly what the ghettos were and how they were implemented. I was absent for the final day of the film.
Before watching the movie, I was aware that Jews had to face horrible conditions in the ghettos, but this movie made the cruelty real for me. It was horrifying to see the man in the wheelchair thrown off the balcony just because the Nazis could and they wanted to incite fear. I could never imagine something like that happening to anyone or imagine that someone could truly ignore every moral fiber they had so they could obey orders. I was amazed that there were that many dead bodies on the ground and that most of the Jews died of starvation. It was sad to see people begging for food and water or trying to smuggle goods in so they could survive. I was surprised that Wladyslaw could be so desensitized to the boy dying in his arms and the woman that went crazy and was searching for her husband. The Jews were absolutely treated cruelly and I was angered when the Nazis made the Jews dance for their own cruel entertainment. I also learned that some Jews signed up to be in a police force where they enforced the Nazi rules in order to survive. I would like to believe that if the Jews decided not to be apart of the Nazi’s rules that maybe they could’ve helped each other out. I don’t think that I will ever be able to forget the horrible and heinous things that the Nazis did to the Jews, not just in Poland. but everywhere.
I had seen the Pianist before, and just from various dealings with the history of the holocaust I already knew a fair amount about the horrific ghettos that the Nazis constructed in virtually all of the occupied cities, but as I was watching it this time I was paying specific attention to the conditions in these ghettos. No one is able to glean enough or truly understand what the Jews went through by only learning the facts surrounding the ghettos, it takes a fair amount of visualization to get a person in the 21st century to even begin to comprehend what it was like, even if that visualization is simulated. The Pianist does a fantastic job of really putting the audience in that situation, making them feel as if they are with the Szpilmans. A large part of this has to do with how in-depth the film focuses on the ghettos in the beginning, the audience gets a really complete experience because the film touches upon some of the different ways Jews handled living in the ghettos beyond just how the Szpilmans dealt with it. That's what made it informative to me, I had always only considered the horribly abusive dynamic between the Nazis and the Jews and never thought of how tense the dynamic among the Jews themselves must have been given the dire circumstances. I know that desperation can lead a person to do surprising things, but it still surprised me to see the Jewish police assist the Nazis in rounding up their own people. The randomness of Wladysaw being saved also struck me, even though I had already seen the film and knew it was coming, it just makes you marvel at the odds of him just happening to be pulled out of the crowd, separated from his family, and it reminds you of the senselessness of the entire holocaust.
By watching the film "The Pianist" I learned a lot about the Jewish ghettos that I did not know before. I used to think that the ghettos were just a different place for the Jews to live, but this film showed the truth about ghettos. The Jews were not allowed to bring all of their belongings or money into the ghetto; but it was also very hard for them to get jobs. Because of this, people could not afford food and many people starved to death. The ghettos were cramped and dirty, and there was a physical brick wall built around the ghetto, completely secluding the Jews from the outside world. The Nazi's who were in charge of the ghettos would do many cruel things to the Jews. This film showed a scene where Nazi's went into a random families house one night and killed them, just because they could. The Nazi's would kill anyone at anytime, just because they could. This caused fear among the Jews, because you never knew what the Nazi's would do next. I never realized how many Jews suffered and actually died in the ghettos because of the poor conditions. This film showed how terrible the ghettos were for the Jews and how much they suffered living in them.
This was probably the most eye opening movie that I have every watched in my life. To see how the Jews were treated and forced out of their homes was surreal when I actually saw pictures and videos of it. Even though it was just a movie, I still though it was real life for the way the Jews were portrayed. I wanted to put myself in the movie and beat up the Nazi soldiers that were terrorizing the Jewish communities and shooting them at random. The fact that they could just walk into any one and either kidnap them or kill all of this pissed me off more than anything. I can’t imagine what the families watching everything must have been thinking. And, how could anybody work for the Nazi’s putting Jews in concentration camps punishing them only because of their religion. I think the Nazi’s and Hitler were bullies who picked on the little people and beat them up. I couldn’t believe that a family split a tiny piece of caramel among 6 people. At that point, I could get a grasp on what the people were going through. Seeing thousands of people starve to death and fight over a little food showed me just how lucky I am to be living in the best life I could ever ask for. I have much more appreciation to the men and women who fought and are currently fighting for my freedom and protection. I don’t think I will ever understand how it was for the Jewish people to go through that ordeal having never been in that situation having never gone through one.
This movie was eye opening to me in many different ways. Before watching the film I had no idea that there were Jewish police appointed and that they treated their own kind terribly. I thought it was terrible that the Jews that were promoted to policemen turned on their own kind and basically became Nazis themselves. I also didn't know that the Nazis would just kill people in the street for no reason at all, and that scene where they threw the old man out the window was especially terrible. This movie really opened my eyes to the hardships that the Jews faced
I was absent for this assignment.
I was absent
While watching "The Pianist" I learned that there were walls built to block the Jews out. I was unaware of this, I had no idea that they were literally confined with cement walls. This was really hard to watch. I know that I have never been treated that way but watching the way that Jews were treated made me sick to my stomach. The way the Gestapo shot the Jewish woman in the head for asking where they were taking her was extremely traumatizing. I think that the worst part was when they tipped the old man over the edge of the balcony and killed him. My jaw dropped watching how easy it was for them to kill the Jews. One thing that I had heard but I didn't understand the realization was the amount of dead people there were. I didn't understand how people weren't even phased by dead children laying on the ground.
I was both incredibly disturbed and intrigued by the movie "The Pianist." I had some but very little knowledge of what happened in places like the Warsaw ghetto before today, except for what I had read in novels. I never realized that the Jews were purposefully left without food and water, or that they were killed unwarranted. This movie really helped me understand the extent of the misery and physical/emotional pain these people suffered every single day. The sense of hopelessness and terror was certainly portrayed well by the actors here, so much so that I, too, felt similar emotions. The fact that women had to smother their children to save them, that people were left in the street after their death, and that Germans could just throw a disabled person in a wheelchair out the window onto the street below prove to me just how extensive the Nazis' evil and hatred for the Jews was. It's enough to make me nauseous. It's hard to imagine that things got worse for the Jews not too long after the implementation of the ghettos.
Before I watched the film, I was aware of ghettos but I felt like I didn't understand the word. I did not know that these people were forced into them, I did not know that they were fenced off, I did not know that 6 million Jews died, and I didn't know that those 6 million Jews that died in the ghetto were pretty much scattered about the street. In addition, I thought it was interesting the attempted organization that the Jews had. It's ironic there were Jewish police but there were bodies scattered throughout the streets.
This movie gave me a real life insight into the hell that the Jews went through at the hands of the Nazis. This movie made me sick at how the Nazis treated the Jews just because they had the power to. It made me start seeing what the holocaust was really like, it made all the deaths during the holocaust more than a number and made me begin to feel real sympathy towards all those who lived during that time in Europe. Before watching this movie I didn't know that brick walls had actually been erected to separate the Jewish ghettos from the rest of the population. I also did not know that there was a Jewish police that helped to keep the Jews alive and helped to clean up all the bodies in the street. I also never knew that Nazis were really violent before the camps and rounded up Jews outside of their homes to kill them just for pure pleasure.
After watching “The Pianist” it really shows you what it was really like to live in the ghettos. Although it was probably a close representation of actually happened the director really showed that Jews during that time period were hated for no reason. While watching this movie I learned that the Germans had built a wall all around the ghetto to just contain the Jews. The scene in the movie where the people across the street are having diner and the Nazis burst right in and kill the man in the wheelchair, I didn't know that they had done this for days upon weeks, upon months, upon years.
I was absent for this assignment.
I was absent when we watched this
The movie "The Pianist" really illustrated just how hard life in the ghettos was for the Jews. I think that a lot of the general public thinks that the Jews that were killed in the Holocaust died in gas chambers in death camps. In reality, 6 million Jews died when they were not in death camps. I found it to be so horrifying that the Germans would kill off Jews in the ghettos just because they could. When they raided that house in the movie and shot the whole family, I was absolutely shocked. The movie really depicted just how awful life in the ghetto was. I think when the family bought the caramel for 20 dollars and split it among all of them, this was a good illustration of just how hungry everyone in the ghettos was.
I was absent.
I thought that the documentary, "the pianist", was an extremely intriguing film that we watched, but it also affected me greatly. I felt extremely bad for all of the Jews that had to be moved from where they lived into the ghettos and then eventually on the trains to the work camps. What was extremely disturbing to me was when the Germans came in at night and went into a Jewish home and then picked up the old man and threw him out the window, where he fell to his death. Afterwards the rest of the family was told to run but then was just shot out of no where for no reason. This angers me greatly that the Germans would just decide to do this to a random Jewish family. I also think that it is uncomforting seeing all these people die on the streets getting beaten by the Germans, like the boy who was climbing under the wall and died right in front of the pianist.
The movie that we watched in class showed me that the living conditions were so bad. There were dead bodies on the street and people couldn't or wouldn't do anything to clear the dead bodies so that they dissolved in the street and smelled horrible. I also learned was that the German's forced the Jews to walk into the gutters and bow to them when they saw them in the street before the ghetto was set up. I also learned that some people went completely insane with the horrible situation in front of them. It really put me into the shoes of the Jewish people of the time and I learned a lot.
I knew that there were Jewish ghettos but I never really knew what living in one was like. I had been told that the ghettos were run by Jewish police and the SS. The film, "The Pianist" opened my eyes to the horrors that the Jewish people had to face each and every day. These terrors included murders both during the day and night, the beating of the Jews inside the ghettos, and it depicted how everything was taken from the Jews just as they were herded onto the trains to the death camps. But I think seeing these events from the perspective of a real life family is very important. This film does an amazing job of portraying the emotions and thoughts of some Jewish families. While many were too terrified to fight against the SS and the Jewish police, there were some who wanted to die fighting. Even seeing how some people simply went insane after being isolated from the rest of the world, was heartbreaking.
From the Pianist I learned that the german troops wanted to incite pain and fear to the Jews. Their heinous actions against the jewish families was inhumane. They had no care whatsoever about as to what they were doing to the families. They killed without a second thought in their minds. There were so many dead bodies in the streets that after a while no one seemed to be bothered anymore about it. Majority of the Jews had learned to accept this as a way of life since there was nothing they could do when the whole nation was against them. All the other non-jews viewed this as the right thing to do since the german troops made them seem superior to the Jews. And they did absolutely nothing to help and just went n with their normal lives as if nothing happened.
I was absent Monday and Tuesday.
Post a Comment