November 1944.
Warsaw lies in ruins.
The Polish population has been evacuated.
German forces are preparing to retreat.
Only about 20 Jews remain alive in the entire city, hiding in the rubble.
One of them is Vadisaf Spielman, a famous pianist starving in an abandoned building.
He’s searching for food when he hears a voice behind him.
What are you doing here? Standing there is a tall German officer.
Spilman expects arrest, interrogation, execution.
Instead, the officer says, “Are you really a pyist? Prove it.” What happened next saved Spilman’s life, but the officer who helped him would die in a Soviet prison, never knowing that his act of mercy had been remembered.
Wadisav Spielman was born December the 5th, 1911 in Zoviet, Poland.
He studied piano at the Shopan Academy of Music in Warsaw, then continued his training at the Academy of Arts in Berlin from 1931 to 1933.
When the regime took power in Germany in 1933, Spilman returned to Warsaw.
By 1935, he’d become a well-known pianist and composer.
He joined Polish radio as their house pianist, performing classical and jazz pieces.
He specialized in Shopan.
On September 23rd, 1939, Spilman was performing live on Polish radio, playing Shopen’s nocturn in C minor when German bombs hit Warsaw.
The broadcast was interrupted mid-performance.
That was the last live music heard on Polish radio until the war’s end.
By November 1940, German authorities had forced Warsaw’s Jews into a sealed ghetto.
Spilman and his family, parents, brother, and two sisters were confined there.
He worked playing piano in ghetto cafes to support them.
In 1942, authorities began mass deportations to Trebinka extermination camp.
Spilman’s entire family was deported.
He was pulled from the deportation line at the last moment by a member of the Jewish police who recognized him as a talented musician.
His parents, brother, and sisters were murdered at Trebinka.
Spilman remained in the ghetto as a laborer.
In February 1943, with help from Polish friends, he escaped the ghetto and hid on the Polish side of the city.
For over a year, Polish friends sheltered Spilman despite the risk.
Helping Jews was punishable by death.
Not just for the helper, but for their entire family.
In August 1944, the Polish Home Army launched an uprising against German occupation.
The Warsaw uprising lasted 63 days.
German forces crushed it brutally.
Between 150,000 and 200,000 Polish civilians died.
After the uprising’s defeat in October, German authorities evacuated the entire remaining Polish population from Warsaw and began systematically destroying the city.
Buildings were burned and demolished.
Warsaw was to be erased.
Spilman’s Polish protectors were evacuated with everyone else.
He was left completely alone in the ruins.
No food, no water.
Winter approaching.
He moved from building to building, hiding in attics and basement, avoiding German patrols.
He was starving, jaundest, barely able to move.
In mid- November, Spilman was hiding in an abandoned building at Allean Nepod Lagosi 223.
He’d been there since August.
The structure had served as German military headquarters before being abandoned.
He was searching the kitchen for food when he heard the voice behind him.
What are you doing here? Don’t you know the staff of the Warsaw Commandour is occupying this house? Spilman turned.
A tall German officer stood there, arms crossed.
Captain Wilm Hosenfeld.
Wilhelm Adelbert Hosenfeld was born May 2nd, 1895 in Mckenzel Hessen, Germany into a devout Catholic family.
He served in World War I and received the Iron Cross second class.
After the war, he became a school teacher.
In 1920, he married Anmarie Kromacher.
They had five children.
Hosenfeld was active in Catholic youth movements and taught at a local school in Hunfeld.
In 1935, Hosenfeld joined the National Socialist Party.
Like many Germans, he believed it would restore Germany’s strength and prosperity.
But by the time war broke out, he’d grown disillusioned.
In August 1939, Hosenfeld was drafted into the Vermacht.
He was 44 years old.
He was stationed in Poland from September 1939 until January 1945.
His first assignment was running a P camp for Polish soldiers.
Even then, he showed humanity.
He allowed prisoners families to visit despite orders forbidding it.
He released several prisoners and became friends with Polish families.
From July 1940, Hosenfeld was stationed in Warsaw.
His official role was sports and culture officer organizing athletic activities and education for German soldiers.
It was not a combat position, but what Hosenfeld witnessed in Warsaw changed him completely.
He saw the Warsaw ghetto, over 400,000 Jews crammed into a tiny district, starving, dying in the streets.
He saw the deportations.
He saw the brutality.
In his private diary, Hosenfeld wrote, “With the horrible mass murder of the Jews, we have lost this war.
We have brought an indelible shame upon ourselves, a curse that cannot be lifted.
” He began actively helping victims.
He employed Leyon Warm, a Jew who’d escaped from a train to Trebinka, giving him false papers and a job at the stadium.
He intervened to free Poles from detention.
He risked his position and his life repeatedly.
During the Warsaw Uprising in summer 1944, Hosenfeld was assigned to interrogate captured resistance fighters.
He demanded they be treated according to Geneva Convention rules, directly defying orders to treat them as criminals.
He tried to help Polish resistance members whose courage he admired.
By November 1944, Hosenfeld knew Germany had lost.
Soviet forces were approaching Warsaw.
The war was ending.
But his orders were to prepare buildings for use by retreating German units.
That’s why he was at the building on a lean neodashi when he discovered Spilman.
When Hosenfeld found Spilman in the kitchen, the pionist was emaciated, barely able to stand.
Hosenfeld asked what he was doing there.
Spilman admitted he was hiding.
He was Jewish.
Hosenfeld asked his profession.
Spilman said he was a pianist.
“Prove it,” Hosenfeld said.
He led Spilman downstairs to a room with a piano.
He then sat at the instrument.
His hands were stiff from cold and malnutrition.
He began playing Schopen’s Nocturn in C minor, the same piece he’d been performing on Polish radio when the war started.
Hosenfeld listened in silence.
When Schilman finished, Hosenfeld made his decision.
He would help.
He allowed Schilman to hide in the attic.
He brought him bread and jam.
He gave him his own German military coat to survive the freezing winter.
He returned regularly with food.
They spoke little.
Hosenfeld told Spilman the war would end soon.
The Soviet army was approaching.
He assured him, “Hold on just a little longer.” In mid December, Hosenfeld came for the last time.
He brought extra bread and a warm blanket.
His unit was evacuating Warsaw.
The Soviets would arrive any day.
Before leaving, Hosenfeld told Spillman his name would protect him if he ever needed help after the war.
But embarrassed by his association with the German military, Hosenfeld never gave his own name.
Spillman insisted.
You haven’t asked me, but I want you to remember.
Spilman.
Polish radio.
If something happens to you and I can help, remember that name.
Hosenfeld left.
Warsaw was liberated by Soviet forces on January 17th, 1945.
Spilman survived.
He returned to Polish radio and resumed his career.
In his first postwar broadcast, he played Shopopen’s Nocturn in C minor, the same piece he’d played for Hosenfeld, completing what the German bombs had interrupted in 1939.
He immediately wrote a memoir, published in 1946 as the death of a city.
He described the German officer who’d saved him, but couldn’t name him.
The memoir was censored by Soviet authorities.
They changed the officer’s nationality from German to Austrian because acknowledging a German humanitarian act contradicted Soviet propaganda.
Wilm Hosenfeld was captured by Soviet forces on January 17th, 1945, the same day Warsaw was liberated during a skirmish near Bone about 30 km from the city.
He was imprisoned and charged with war crimes.
the charge.
He’d interrogated prisoners during the Warsaw uprising and was therefore complicit in oppression.
In 1946, Hosenfeld wrote to his wife from prison.
He listed names of Jews and Poles he’d saved, including Leon Warm and Wadisov Spielman.
He begged her to find them and asked them to testify on his behalf.
In November 1950, Leon Warm visited Hosenfeld’s wife and told her he’d met Hosenfeld in a Soviet P camp.
He wrote to Spilman with the information.
Spilman and others petitioned Soviet authorities for Hosenfeld’s release.
They provided testimony about his humanitarian actions.
The Soviets refused to consider it.
On May 7th, 1950, a military tribunal in Minsk sentenced Hosenfeld to 25 years hard labor.
The one-page verdict stated the trial was conducted without defense council.
Hosenfeld suffered a stroke in 1947 that paralyzed his right side.
His health deteriorated steadily.
On August 13th, 1952, he died of an aortic rupture in a Soviet prison hospital.
He was 57 years old.
For decades, Hosenfeld remained largely unknown.
Spilman’s memoir had been censored and forgotten.
In 1998, Spilman’s son, Andre, published a new edition of the memoir in German and English titled The Pist.
It included excerpts from Hosenfeld’s diary.
The book became an international success.
In 2002, director Roman Palansky, himself, a Holocaust survivor who’d escaped the crack of ghetto, adapted the book into a film.
The pianist won the palm door at KHN and three Academy Awards.
Actor Thomas Cretchman portrayed Hosenfeld.
The film brought worldwide attention to Hosenfeld’s story.
In 1998, Spilman had applied to Yadvashm to have Hosenfeld recognized as righteous among the nations, a title for non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust.
The application was initially rejected.
Yadvashm needed to verify that Hosenfeld had not been involved in war crimes during his interrogation duties.
New evidence emerged.
Hosenfeld’s complete diaries and letters showing his consistent opposition to atrocities and his efforts to help victims.
On February 16th, 2009, Yadvashm postuously recognized Wilhelm Hosenfeld as righteous among the nations.
On June 19th, 2009, his son Detv received the medal in Berlin from Israeli diplomats.
On December 4th, 2011, a commemorative plaque in Polish and English was unveiled at 223 Nepod Legwashi Avenue in Warsaw where Hosenfeld found Spilman.
Spilman’s widow Helina son Andre and Hosenfeld’s daughter Urinda attended the ceremony.
Wadisv Spielman died on July 6th, 2000 at age 88.
He never stopped trying to honor the German officer who saved him.
Vilm Hosenfeld’s story isn’t about rebellion.
It’s about quiet choices in a world gone mad.
He wore the same uniform as the men who destroyed cities.
Yet, he chose to save lives instead of taking them.
Captured by the Soviets, Hosenfeld died in prison, never knowing he’d made a difference.
But Spilman never forgot.
He spent years trying to find and free him, later dedicating his memoir to the German officer who saved his life.
In the ruins of Warsaw, a soldier and a pianist crossed paths, and one act of mercy became a story the world would never forget.
