SOURCE: Spiegelman, Arthur. Review of The Pianist, by Roman Polanski. Los Angeles Times (3 January 2003): E14.

In the following review, Spiegelman—author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel Maus—discusses how Polanski's experiences as a Holocaust survivor informed the making of The Pianist.

The man escaping a roundup of Jews has his life saved with a warning: “Walk, don't run.” A woman shot by Nazis collapses in a strange, contorted way. The windows of a house where a Polish Jew hides are draped totally in black paper to keep in every ray of light.

Director Roman Polanski, 69, doesn't like to talk publicly or even much privately about his experiences surviving the Holocaust as a boy in Poland. But his memory speaks volumes about it in the new movie, The Pianist, a film ostensibly based on another man's life, the Polish Jewish pianist and composer Wladyslaw Szpilman.

It is Polanski...