Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2017 December 7

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December 7

The Pianist - German language

In the Holocaust film The Pianist, why did the Germans (especially Wilm Hosenfeld) spoke to the Polish Jews (especially Władysław Szpilman) in their own language rather than in English or Polish? 31.48.29.211 (talk) 21:50, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

Yiddish was widely spoken by Jewish communities in eastern Europe; Yiddish and German have some mutual intelligibility [1] so there's a good chance that a Yiddish speaker would be able to make sense of spoken German.

As to why the director chose to use use German speech instead of English, he may have just wanted to show that they weren't using the everyday language of the main characters. Perhaps IMDb - The Pianist (2002): Trivia holds another clue: "A nuance for those who don't speak German: In general, the German officers use the informal version of "you" ("du," etc.) when talking to the Jews, which reflects their views (you wouldn't talk to adult strangers that way); however, Hosenfeld (the officer who discovers Wladyslaw Szpilman in hiding) always uses the proper formal form ("Sie," etc.) because of the way he personally feels". Alansplodge (talk) 11:50, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

I haven't read his memoir, but it looks probable that Szpilman spoke German. He studied with Schnabel, Schreker and Leonid Kreutzer in Berlin (early 1930s, see article), and it would surprise me if it turned out that teachers and pupil had not spoken German with one another. ---Sluzzelin talk 19:15, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

That seems likely. Language(s) in the Buna/Monowitz Concentration Camp says "Ashkenazic Jews who knew Yiddish could understand the Germans". Alansplodge (talk) 19:38, 8 December 2017 (UTC)