The City in View Comparative Representations and Historical Memory of the Warsaw Ghetto in Memoir and Film

When the Warsaw Ghetto was demolished by German forces towards the end of World War II, there were few physical traces of the Ghetto left standing. As such, both historians and the public must look to other types of sources to understand what life and death were like for the inhabitants of the Ghetto, and how they have remembered their experiences within the Ghetto. These memories and representations of the Warsaw Ghetto can be found in memoir-style written works, and later, in films based on these works. This thesis will examine the ways in which the Warsaw Ghetto was represented by two authors who survived it, Władisław Szpilman and Marcel Reich-Ranicki, and how their memory of the Warsaw Ghetto is represented in the films based on their lives and survival, The Pianist, and Mein Leben: Marcel Reich-Ranicki.