Wilm Hosenfeld
www.hosenfeld.de

In 2002 Wilm Hosenfeld achieved world-wide fame as the rescuer of the Polish-Jewish pianist and composer Wladyslaw Szpilman, when Roman Polanski's film "The Pianist" won the Golden Palm in Cannes and 3 Academy Awards. This incredible story of survival brought tears to the eyes of those all around the world who saw the film. As Benjamin Z. Kedar tells in his article Has Satan taken on a human form? in www.Haaretz.com August 6, 2004:

"Anyone who has seen Roman Polanski's film "The Pianist" remembers the scene in which a German officer listens to Polish-Jewish musician Wladislaw Szpilman playing, hides him in an attic in Warsaw and sees to his needs.

Anyone who has read Szpilman's book remembers that when the musician asks his savior whether he is a German, the latter replies emotionally: "Yes! And I am ashamed of this, after everything that has happened." Szpilman, who was afraid that if he fell into the hands of the Germans he would break down and reveal his rescuer, preferred not to know his name.

Thus it happened that only in the epilogue that Wolf Biermann added in 1998 to the new edition of Szpilman's memoirs, was it revealed for the first time that the German officer was called Wilm Hosenfeld, and some details about his life story were given."