There are no enough about him. He was born in 1911 in Poland and it is well known his great talent for piano execution since he was a child.

If you don’t know who he was, Szpilman was a Jewish holocaust survivor who shined, in his time, as an extraordinary pianist of his country of birth, Poland, specifically Warsaw. His biography explains that, during the days of the ghetto, he entertained Jewish who lived there playing at bars and coffee shops. What happened after that? Well, I won’t extend myself talking about history, but about interesting facts of his life.

Wladyslaw tells on his biography that, way to the trains which took Jewish to death camps, he was with his family and a hand grabbed his neck out of the lines. This hand was a police officer’s who collaborated with nazi army. He was a familiar whom he never treated enough, but who, fortunately, recognized him and took action in order to save Wladyslaw’s life. He said: “What are you doing here? Run, save your life”.

Though it may seem a joke, we could put in perspective this situation –remembering Diego Armando Maradona– and say it was God’s hand which interceded through this member of his family. Was familiarity the reason why this officer saved him from getting such a dramatic death as every one else of that line had to live on the death camps? You must remember his family stayed on the lines in that same moment and died right after that.

Having told you about that situation –which you may decide considering as a casual fact, a coincidence or a manifestation of his destiny– I must tell that Wladyslaw Szpilman was running and hiding from nazi army for years. For that reason I find it very curious the story that his biography tells. What occurred was that, while he was hidden in one of his hiding places, he met a nazi officer named Wilm Hosenfeld, who –recognizing he was in from of a Jewish– asked him what Szpilman was doing there. Szpilman, without an answer, just kept silenced while officer Hosenfeld just kept making the same question once and over again, until Szpilman said with resignation: “Do whatever you want to do with me, I am not moving”, so Hosenfeld answered back saying that he had no intentions of doing anything to him. Now, ask yourself, why?

Imagine. A nazi officer finds a Jewish vulnerable and decides forgiving his life, let him live. I wonder: was it destiny? God’s will? Why did it happen to him that way, almost against all odds? Would you think –again– it was God’s hand interceding?

After that, Szpilman says, he played Chopin's Nocturne in C-sharp minor for him, gaining Hosenfeld’s admiration and recognition of his talent. Now, what could we think? This gift owned by Szpilman was also his blessing because it saved him from a very tragic death to which –behind living holocaust for years– finally survived.