The Pianist

This chapter details instances of the German practice of “human hunting”: stopping people in the streets to either beat them or send them to labor camps (75). In the spring of 1942, the Germans temporarily pause their arrests in the ghetto. Władysław and Henryk have taken to sleeping in a doctor’s surgery at night to avoid the nocturnal raids. One night in April 1942, German shoot seventy men in an attempt to “cleanse our part of the city of ‘undesirable elements’” (76).

In May, the Germans transfer the job of human-hunting to the Jewish police and labor bureau. The Jewish police force is made up of young men from the wealthy classes. These members of the Jewish police try to be “in close touch with the Gestapo,” emphasizing their ability to speak German and demonstrating harshness in dealing with other Jews (77).In one of the roundups, the police apprehend Henryk. Władysław uses his status as a musician to get his brother released. The other individuals rounded up by the police are taken to a camp in Treblinka, “so that Germans could test the efficiency of the newly built gas chambers and crematorium furnaces” (78).At this point in the story, Władysław is still unaware that Jews are being murdered in the camps.