Have you read ‘If This is a Man’ by Primo Levi…what are your thoughts on his story?
How do you percieve the chap in the film ‘Saving Private Ryan’ when he could go to the aid of his friend entangled with a German soldier - but didn’t - as he fights desperately for his life?
His friend died, as he trembled on the stairway.
In my experience, it’s quite often the ones that one doesn’t expect it from that are courageous fighters, and the ones one would expect it from are a disappointment.
No i have not read it. But i read the Ilia Erenburg stories about atrocities in Polish Getto.
How do you percieve the chap in the film ‘Saving Private Ryan’ when he could go to the aid of his friend entangled with a German soldier - but didn’t - as he fights desperately for his life?
His friend died, as he trembled on the stairway.
But this man finally shoted that Germans bas…rd, right.
He finally has overcomed his fear. And he has become the soldier.
In this film everybody has carryed out its debt - they finally have won, althought many of them perished.
So this is a good movie, but the ugly pitiful story “pianists” is the story that teach how to look at death of your friends and survived while they perished.
And fa…ng happy end - he surrvived and has became the Great Pianists after the war:)What’s a nice.
The coward that observed as his all of his friend went to death, he played for the GErmans officer ( that carry out its debt called him as “jew”) for food:)
Sure he has the right to save his skin - but the Polansky is a ugly moral man who made the Szpilman as a “good hero” for his film.
It strange - why he did not shoted the film about colloborationists or who work for the Nazy in occuped states- they also saw a atrocities and may be they also disliked it, but they did nothing - coz they work for Germans ( as Szpilman who playd for food for one of Nazy:))?
Really this could be the Great idia for Polanski - the peoples simply tryed to survived and many of them have survived. While the other perished.
It seem this is a perfect scenarion for this “brilliant” pedofil-derector Polanski:)
In my experience, it’s quite often the ones that one doesn’t expect it from that are courageous fighters, and the ones one would expect it from are a disappointment.
I do not expect that everybody should fight and die for something , but to shote the film about coward that succesfully survived his relatives playng in piano- is something disgusting.
What would you do if you were Szpilmann, Chevan?
Would you save your family?
I assume that you would try (no matter how low your chances would be, right?).
What if after that somebody asked you a question: why did you save your own family only?
Why didn’t you save any others?
Why didn’t you care about children, orphans and old?
Funny? I don’t think so. I bet that at least one “Chevan” would ask you such question.
So, what would you do if you were Szpilmann?
And don’t say “at least I would try”.
Tell us exactly, what would you do?
but the Polansky is a ugly moral man who made the Szpilman as a “good hero” for his film
I think that the viewer has his own thoughts…the viewer will decide if ‘the pianist’ is or is not ‘a good man’, ‘a hero’…
Polanski did not gave me the impression that he was forcing HIS ideas…but that he wanted to make us think…that he wants us to be confused…
I never got the idea that he was a good man…a good hero…
I didn’t know what to think…what should I do if I were in that situation…?
What is a hero…? I bet that when we ask people to describe ‘hero’ we get all kind of different explanations…
I absolutely agree with you Koen.
Well for the first- i would try to enter in Polish Army in the in sep 1939.:)This is my civil duty, right.
The every man shoul defend its mothelannd , is it not?
Or may be you Kovalski would stay at home and coz you have to play on the piano?
Or may be the Poland was not a motheland for Szpilmann, worthwhile to fight and die for it ?
I would recommend it. He was in Auschwitz and he descibes his situation there.
The second volume, the name of which evades me, describes liberation and his journey home walking through a part of the Soviet Union, it took him several years to reach Italy.
But this man finally shoted that Germans bas…rd, right.
He finally has overcomed his fear. And he has become the soldier.
Chevan, I think you ought to try getting in touch with your female side, loosen up a little.
I remember the first time I was really scared. My arse-hole kept nipping; my stomach was churning; I kept breaking wind and had hardly any control over my bladder. It seemed as if I couldn’t take a deep breath and I kept trying to gulp down air which I sometimes swallowed; my throat became constricted causing my voice to sound croaky, and I experienced a dull ache around the rims of my eyes which in effect gave me that pie-eyed look :shock: …is it any wonder she said - No! 
I will try to find it.
But i still do not understand - you mean that the situationin camps were so bad that suppressed the any will for resist?
I.m agree the Pianist was not in a camp, right?
Chevan, I think you ought to try getting in touch with your female side, loosen up a little.
You think i should decrease the tone:)OK
I remember the first time I was really scared. My arse-hole kept nipping; my stomach was churning; I kept breaking wind and had hardly any control over my bladder. It seemed as if I couldn’t take a deep breath and I kept trying to gulp down air which I sometimes swallowed; my throat became constricted causing my voice to sound croaky, and I experienced a dull ache around the rims of my eyes which in effect gave me that pie-eyed look :shock: …is it any wonder she said - No!
In my first time i wasn’t scared- i was enough drunk for avoid . But vodka has playd a bad thing with my organism, my male functions did not work well. So i was disappointed
I thought for an instant, there, you meant your female side.
But i still do not understand - you mean that the situationin camps were so bad that suppressed the any will for resist?
I.m agree the Pianist was not in a camp, right?
No, I thought that as you are interested in the Holocaust you’d find this particular book interesting.
You think i should decrease the tone:)OK
We are who we are, and you have the disadvantage of having to communicate in a foreign language, which can sometimes cause subtlety to be lost in translation.
In my first time i wasn’t scared- i was enough drunk for avoid . But vodka has playd a bad thing with my organism, my male functions did not work well. So i was disappointed
It wasn’t my first sexual encounter - it didn’t happen.
I/m very interested of Holocaust:)
And i know where from to get the good right books about it:)
We are who we are, and you have the disadvantage of having to communicate in a foreign language, which can sometimes cause subtlety to be lost in translation.
Yes sometimes i feel disadvantage of thin understanding.
Its not easy to uderstand you if i get my english exercises only in forums, without speaking contact
It wasn’t my first sexual encounter - it didn’t happen.
But did it happen later?
You are doing ok.
But did it happen later?
About fifteen years later, with her, that is.
I was about twelve at the time and she was ten years older. I met her again when I was in my mid-twenties. I had totally forgotten about her, but seeing her then, in a pub, the sense of challenge rose again - along with other things. :o
Moving on:
"Hate, however, is foreign to Levi, who also knows that "a socialism without prison camps’’ is possible and desirable but that "a Nazism without concentration camps is unimaginable’’. Without fascism, there would have been no literary Primo Levi. We should make the most of his works to help ensure fascism never happens again."
If This is a Man and the other book is The Truce.