The Pianist Activities on the film.

1. Complete the text with the correct words. Use the words below: Amount survive - learns armbands radio remaining - extermination witnesses - conditions balcony - explosions hunger - pianist smuggle quickly- horrors -collapse shot - rejoice - invasion rights starvation saved uprising - hiding Wladyslaw Szpilman , a famous Polish Jewish ________ working for Warsaw Radio, sees his whole world _____________ with the outbreak of World War II and the __________of Poland on September 1, 1939. After the radio station is rocked by __________ from German bombing, Szpilman goes home and __________ that the United Kingdom and France have declared war on Nazi Germany. He and his family __________, believing the war will end ______________. When the SS takes over Warsaw after the Wehrmacht moves out, living _______________ for the Jewish population gradually deteriorate as their ____________ are slowly eroded: first they are allowed only a limited ______________ of money per family, then they must wear ______________ imprinted with the blue Star of David to identify themselves, and eventually, on Halloween 1940, they are all forced into the squalid Warsaw Ghetto. There, they face ___________, persecution and humiliation from the SS and the ever-present fear of death, torture and ________________. The Nazis become increasingly sadistic and the family ______________ many horrors inflicted on other Jews. In one scene, a group of Einsatzgruppen go into the apartment across from the Szpilmans. They order the family on the top floor to stand, then when an ________________ man in a wheelchair is unable to comply, the SS throw him off the _______________. The rest of the family are then taken out into the street and ____________, and the SS drive off, running over the bodies along the way. Before long, the family, along with thousands of others, are rounded up as part of Operation Reinhard for deportation to the _____________ facility at Treblinka. As the Jews are being forced onto rail cars, Szpilman is ___________ at the last moment by one of the Jewish Ghetto Police who happens to be a family friend. Separated from his family and loved ones, Szpilman manages to __________.

At first he is pressed into a German reconstruction unit inside the ghetto as a slave _____________. During this period, another Jewish labourer confides to Szpilman two critical pieces of information: one, that many Jews who still survive know of the German plans to exterminate them, and two, that a Jewish ____________ against the Germans is being actively prepared for. Szpilman volunteers his help for the plan. He is enlisted to help ____________weapons into the ghetto, almost being caught at one point. Later, before the uprising starts, Szpilman decides to go into ____________ outside the ghetto, relying on the help of non-Jews who still remember him such as an ex-coworker of his from the ___________ station. While living in hiding, he witnesses many __________ committed by the SS, such as widespread killing, beating and burning of Jews and others (the burning is mostly shown during the two Warsaw uprisings). In 1943, Szpilman also finally witnesses the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising he helped to bring about, and its aftermath as the SS forcibly enters the ghetto and kills nearly all the __________ insurgents. 2. Choose the correct sentence to complete each paragraph: A year goes by and life in Warsaw further deteriorates. Szpilman is forced to a. flee his first hiding place b. remain in his first hiding place c. kill a German soldier after a mean-spirited neighbor (who's presumably the landlord, due to the way she sternly questions for his ID) detects his presence and threatens to have him detained and turned in. In his second hiding place, near a a. German extermination facility b. German military hospital c. German radio station in a rare moment of humor, he is shown into a room with a piano and then told to be as quiet as possible. Of course, Szpilman can't resist opening the keyboard. Here, he nearly dies due to jaundice and malnutrition.

In August 1944, the Polish resistance mounts the Warsaw Uprising against the German occupation, Szpilman witnesses a. the Polish insurgents fighting against the Russians b.the Polish insurgents fighting the Germans c. the German insurgents fighting against the Russians outside his window. Again, Szpilman narrowly escapes death when a German tank shells the apartment he is hiding in. Warsaw is virtually razed and depopulated as a result of the fighting . After the surviving Warsaw population is deported from the city ruins and the escape of German SS from the approaching Soviet Army, Szpilman is left entirely alone. In buildings still standing, he searches desperately a. for friends b. for German soldiers c. for food. While trying to open a can of Polish pickles Szpilman is discovered by a. a captain of the Wehrmacht, b. a soviet soldier c. a member of the Gestapo Wilm Hosenfeld . Upon questioning Szpilman and discovering that he is a pianist, Hosenfeld asks Szpilman to play something for him on the piano that happens to be in the building. Hosenfeld lets Szpilman continue hiding in the attic of the building and even brings him a. food regularly, b. friends from time to time, c. books to read every day, thus saving his life. Another few weeks go by, and the German troops are forced to withdraw from Warsaw due to the advance of the Red Army troops. Before leaving the area, Hosenfeld asks Szpilman what his name is, and, upon hearing it, remarks that it is apt for a pianist (Szpilman being the Polish rendering of the German Spielmann, meaning "man who plays"). Hosenfeld also promises to listen for Szpilman on Polish Radio.

He gives Szpilman hisWehrmacht uniform greatcoat and leaves. Later, that coat is almost fatal for Szpilman when Polish troops, liberating the ruins of Warsaw, take him for a German officer and shoot at him. He is eventually able to convince them that he is Polish, and they stop shooting. As newly freed prisoners of a concentration camp walk home, they pass a fenced-in enclosure of German prisoners of war, guarded by Soviet soldiers. An injured German prisoner, who turns out to be Hosenfeld, calls out to the passing ex-prisoners. Hosenfeld begs one of them, a violinist of Szpilman's acquaintance, to contact Szpilman to free him. Szpilman, who has gone back to playing live on Warsaw Radio, arrives at the site too late; all the prisoners have been removed to their fates along with any trace of the stockade. In the film's final scene, Szpilman triumphantly performs Chopin's Grand Polonaise brillante in E flat major to a large audience in Warsaw. Title cards shown just before the end credits reveal that Szpilman continued to live in Warsaw and died in 2000, but that Hosenfeld died in 1952 in a Soviet KGB prisoner-of-war camp, but was later posthumously honored for saving Szpilman's life and turning against his own criminal regime.