Family of man who inspired The Pianist film win defamation appeal

Family of Władysław Szpilman, the subject of Roman Polanski movie, win appeal against claim he collaborated with Nazis

The family of Władysław Szpilman, whose story became the inspiration for Roman Polanski’s Oscar-winning Holocaust movie The Pianist, has won an appeal against claims that he collaborated with the Nazis.

Szpilman’s widow and son brought the case in Warsaw’s appeals court after losing an earlier lawsuit in which they argued that comments in a 2010 biography of the Polish-Jewish singer Wiera Gran amounted to defamation.

The biography of the celebrated Warsaw ghetto singer, by writer and journalist Agata Tuszyńska, quoted Gran as saying Szpilman had been a member of the Jewish police in the ghetto, most of whose 400,000 residents were deported to Nazi death camps or died from starvation, disease and fighting.

Gran, who died in 2007, was herself suspected of collaborating with the Nazis and stood trial in 1947 before a citizens’ tribunal of the Central Committee of Polish Jews. Although acquitted two years later, she faced persistent criticism and in 1950 moved to Israel and then to France, where she performed with the likes of Maurice Chevalier and Charles Aznavour.

At the initial defamation hearing in 2013, ghetto survivors who had known Szpilman, including Władysław Bartoszewski, the former Polish foreign minister, resistance fighter, writer, historian and Auschwitz survivor who died last year, comprehensively dismissed Gran’s claims.

The judge, Bożena Lasota, noted that the author had herself expressed doubts over the claims and “never shared Wiera Gran’s most serious view”. But Lasota also said that biographers were entitled to quote opinions under freedom of speech, adding that it would be impossible to write a biography of a subject who had recently died without upsetting anyone.

The appeals court found that the remarks did amount to defamation of Szpilman, who died in Warsaw in 2000, two years before being portrayed by Adrien Brody in Polanski’s popular and critically acclaimed film.

Tuszyńska and the publishers of Vera Gran: The Accused, which is based on conversations with Gran, witness accounts and archival evidence, now have 15 days to make a public apology to the Szpilman family and must ensure the incriminating passages are removed from any future editions of the work.

The pianist’s son, Andrzej, welcomed the decision, saying it would “allow ethical standards in Poland to improve” and help define “the poorly interpreted notion of freedom of speech”.

The biographer, however, said she was appalled, telling the Gazeta Wyborcza daily: “Once again, they have closed Wiera Gran’s mouth. I am really sorry.”

The Pianist is based on a 1946 memoir of Szpilman by the writer Jerzy Waldorff, who first met the musician and composer in 1938. The book and film recount how Szpilman used his music to survive Poland’s brutal occupation by the Nazis in the second world war, including the concentration camps, the 1943 razing of the ghetto and the 1944 Warsaw uprising.

The film won three Oscars, including best actor for Brody, as well as a Bafta award for best film and the Palme d’Or at the 2002 Cannes film festival.

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