I was wondering why did Jews wear the star if German weren't able to tell who is Jewish or not? Jews knew Polish language as well as Polish people, their names are similar, Spielman is even German i think, since "spiele" in German means play.
I am just wondering would that work, to not wear the star and pretend they were not Jewish but Polish? How could Germans tell?
What do you think? Thank you. Sorry for bad English.
Alex, not wearing the Star of David and being caught would of resulted in either a massive beating or you would of been shot on site.
Jews for 2,000 years practiced and believed in the fact that evil tyrants had always come and gone. Nobody knew that Hitler was a completely new and different monster.
So you are telling me that Jews didn't know that wearing the star would result in something bad? When Jews heard they were forbidden being in the park or cafe, why didn't they take off the star and pretend they were Polish? How could Germans even tell?
You said if they were caught not wearing the star, they would have been beaten. But how would Germans identify a Jew? You cant say by his name if he is a Jew or Polish or even German. There were no some kind of religious sings on them so you can tell if they were Jews. I don't understand this. Its not like they are Muslims. All Muslims have unique names. But Jews, Christians etc have pretty much the same international names in most cases. The only logic answer would be that Jews wanted to wear it. But why when it all started with forbidding, threats and punishments for those who wear it.
While I sometimes wondered myself why they all 'decided' to wear the star, I realized that some of it was that a lot of Polish Jews (not all, but many at least in the film) had distinctly Non-Aryan features.
This would have easily given them away. Even Szpilman refers to this himself in his novel "The Pianist".
Halina, their mother & father all had rather 'obvious' features here too.
But as to those who did not, I imagine it was a fear-issue. A real one to be afraid of too, as others mentioned you were shot on sight for refusal.
Germans likely could stop anyone they liked (and probably did) to ask for identity cards and/or other ID.
I'd say this cloud is Cumulo Nimbus.
Didn't he discover America?
Penfold, shush.
They'd just ask for your papers and then you'd be done for.
shareThey were ordered to wear the Star of David, that was so the Nazis could more easily round them all up when the time came. All citizenry would also be asked to "see your papers" at any time, and your papers had your last name which was typically Jewish sounding. Also, Jews and Poles had no weapons, they were all confiscated.
Nazis would just look at them and decide they looked Jewish, they are Jewish. If their papers showed that the last name was "Hoffman" (German) then they would be asked to speak German, or asked where they lived.
Don't forget, at any time the Jews could've been rounded up, and at every airport or marine port they needed proper papers to flee, but that was near impossible, regardless if they were not wearing the Star.
At the beginning of the occupation Germans made it compulsory for Polish citizens above 15 years old to have identification documents with fingerprints and information about religion and ethnicity. Some Jewish people especially the assimilated ones with Polish friends managed to obtain forged documents but others (like Orthodox Jews) did not consider changing their identity as an option.
As it was stated above, some Jews look different from Slavic or Germanic people and it would be difficult for them to survive without drawing attention of Nazis. Often men with right documents were ordered to strip and of course circumcision would be a giveaway.
You aren't entirely right about names. For example Szpilman isn't a traditional Polish name, it's a Polonized German name and those were very common among Jewish people. Names ending with -man, -mann, -stein, -berg, -blum etc. were not so common outside Jewish community in Poland.
Disobeying Nazi orders and refusing to wear a yellow star meant immediate death so many Jews just tried to survive despite humiliation. Also remember that no one thought it would eventually lead to Holocaust, most people hoped it was just a temporary ordeal and soon Germany would be defeated and things would come back to normal.
Jews thought that Hitler would pass with time and that the best policy was to obey and not escalate things and what the time.
Nobody could of possibly imagine what the Nazi had in store
Szpilmam is the polish phonetic spelling of Spielmann so yes, you are right there. Little things like how they spell their names would have been a give away for jews when having papers checked which would have happened if the didn't have their stars on. Also, the germans would have put the fear of god into them so they would have probably rather worn their stars than risk being shot/beat to death.
shareIn case of men, the Nazis could check if they were circumcised. In these times, and in Poland generally to this day, save for a very few cases coming from medical reasons, only religious Jews are circumcised.
shareMost of them were proud of their heritage and were not willing to hide the fact that they were jewish, even if it saved their life.
shareThey didn't have guns to defend themselves with so they had to comply.
Spoiler alert for them spoil sports out there! Y'all like spoiled milk, stop crying over it!
I guess you are not from any western europe country so let me explain you (otherwise they would have explained that to you in school and show you old textbook from the 30's) : before WWII childrens in schools learned things that are forbidden now : they learnt things such as "jews are white *beep* " that you can recognize them because of their nose and big lips.. same kind of racist stuff about africans, arabs . you can still found all these school books, that was common at the time in france, germany, uk, well about the whole EU. You have pictures, draws and explanation of why they are "inferiors races" and "superior races". Of course after WWII the United nation declared it was forbidden to classified human being on their physcal aspect and all.. So in a word , people from that time had learnt in school how to detect who is a jew and who is not based on their physical look (I'm not saysing it's good or not I'm just relating facts I learnt in school). Also at that time there was really not much immigration and germans dont even look like english who dont look like french ( they are all caucasien but if you live there you can see someone is not from your country very easily just by the look) so it was not so complicated to detect someone who is "different". Now of course kids arent really aware of how it was hence your question..
shareVery interesting! I can understand that people around would talk about these racist things then (as it is now) but to put such stuff in textbooks and explain this in normal schools? That sounds crazy to me!
shareYou're assuming that all Jews wore the star. Not all Jews did the same thing. Many were prescient enough to flee Germany at the first signs of trouble, before it was too late. Others rebelled against the Nazi edicts and went into hiding or passed as gentiles. Polanski himself was a half-Jewish child living in Nazi-occupied Krakow and passed for a Catholic, living with a Polish Catholic family (who risked their lives to shield him like the friendly Poles in the movie) until he was discovered and embarked on a wandering journey to stay alive similar to Szpilman's.
And some Jews did the unimaginable to survive. According to the show "Hitler's Collaborators" as many as 100,000 Jewish or partially Jewish German men passed as gentiles and served in the German army, including SS and high-ranking officers.
Do you might know how he was discovered?
shareThey couldn't tell just by looking. But if any German soldier or guard asked to see their (identity) papers they would be caught out immediately. Jews were stripped of citizenship, so they didn't have identity papers.
There's a point in the film where he has forged papers for everyone except his father and an old friend offers to help. But then they get put on the trains.