The Pianist

The problem with historical atrocities is that once the facts have been absorbed and processed, we, or I at least, tend to get desensitised. I hear about the madness of the past, shake my head, possibly even get an ache in the pit of my stomach, but the next day it is no longer part of my life. I focus on me and those around me, always with the knowledge of historical events, but more concerned by the current causes for concern.

Yes, the holocaust killed millions of Jews, but at this very moment women are being raped and innocent people are being killed around the world.

Once in a while, something happens to jolt me out of my focus on today's world and bring the past into sharp focus, making me realise the horrors of fifty years ago in a way so vivid and terrible that I gasp out loud and try, without success, to comprehend how people can do such inhuman things to other people.

I watched Roman Polanski's 'the Pianist' the other night. We are in the process of buying a flat in a building on the edge of Warsaw's former Jewish Ghetto, and someone had mentioned that the bridge from the small ghetto to the large ghetto, which was very close to the building in which we will be living, was featured in the film.

The film is amazing. I knew how people suffered, I knew how many people died, I knew how the Jews were taken from Umschlagplatz to extermination camps, I knew all that. During the film though I felt it. I experienced it.

There are some truly shocking moments, and the knowledge that such things actually happened, makes it all the more painful, but it is a true masterpiece. It deserved the Palm d'Or, the Oscars, the Baftas, it deserved all of them.

Watch it. I'll lend you the DVD.