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The Zookeeper's Wife: A War Story

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There are many stories that continue to come out of the WW II experience, stories of courage, love and survival in the face of near hopeless situations inflicted upon the globe by Nazi Germany, and, thankfully, biographies of heroes whose moral convictions were stronger than the destructive forces of Hitler's cadre. THE ZOOKEEPER'S WIFE is yet another unknown story, a true tale of survival of the human spirit pitted against what seemed to be the end of the world in Poland. Yet this book is not 'just another war story'. As presented by the astute investigator and gifted writer Diane Ackerman, whose many books include 'A Natural History of the Senses', 'An Alchemy of Mind: The Marvel and Mystery of the Brain', 'The Moon by Whale Light - and Other Adventures Among Bats, Penguins', Crocodilians and Whales', 'A Natural History of Love', 'Deep Play', 'Cultivating Delight: A Natural History of My Garden', 'The Rarest of the Rare: Vanishing Animals, Timeless Worlds', and anthologies of poems such as 'I Praise My Destroyer: Poems' and 'Jaguar of Sweet Laughter: New and Selected Poems', this is a magical tale about a couple in Warsaw whose roles as zookeepers allowed their shared appreciation for animal life and ways of adapting to devise ingenious ways to protect many of the Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto from mass execution.

Jan and Antonina Zabinski were Polish Christian keepers of the Zoo when the Germans under Hitler's scheme of world domination and purification of Europe for the chosen race of Aryans began. Ackerman quietly builds her setting by concentrating on the special gifts of these two remarkable people in caring for the animals of the zoo: her descriptions of the various members of the menagerie are at once comical and insightful. When Hitler's move into Poland began the Zabinskis, long friends with the many Jews who lived around them, devised clever ways to turn the zoo and their own villa into a safe haven for the increasingly threatened annihilation of their friends who happened to be Jewish. Throughout the horrors of the German destruction of the city and the attempts of the Warsaw Uprising, led in part by Jan Zabinski, the couple maintained an atmosphere of calm and grace for the some 300 Jews in their hiding. Using the Zoo as a shield to deflect occupying German interest in animal studies as a part of their theory of purification, and as a means to gather food in the Jewish Ghetto for the 'animals', they were able to feed their 'guests' and provide papers and documents to aid the escape of the Jews who chose to flee Poland. And after the war the Zabinskis continued to refurbish the zoo and offer sanctity to those Jews whose lives had been so devastated during the crush of Warsaw.

Ackerman is a master craftsman and her depth of scientific knowledge about the animal kingdom makes her ability to relate this story of 'The Zookeeper's Wife' match the inordinate amount of research about her subjects to create an important document about an historical fact previously unknown. And yet her ability to invest her story with poetic force is always evident: '...war plays havoc with sensory memories as the sheer intensity of each moment, the roiling adrenaline and fast pulse, drive memories in deeper, embed every small detail, and make events unforgettable. While that can strengthen friendship or love, it can also taint sensory treasures like music. By associating any tune with danger, one never again hears it without adrenaline pounding as memory hits consciousness followed by a jolt of fear...It's a terrific way to ruin great music'.

There are times in this fine novel when the reader is jarred from the flow of the story being told by Ackerman's insertions of data or stepping in to remind us that she interviewed some of the survivors in her research: the drama of the tale is diluted momentarily by facts and figures and names, moving the reader away from the visceral experience of the Zabinski's story to remind us that we are reading a documented biography. Yet in the end the book is so powerful, so overflowing with gracious writing and so full of the indomitable human spirit that such small 'flaws' become inconsequential. Ackerman has unveiled another great moment in the histories of human kindness during times of war, and we are the richer for it. Highly recommended. Grady Harp, September 07

I feel bad knocking this book because the story of Jan and Antonina Zabinski is one of two amazing people in Warsaw during the German occupation who demonstrated courage, brilliance, resilience, and humanity in the face of the grossest barbarism this planet has seen. Yet, Diane Ackerman has placed me in this position with her absurdly overblown writing, her precious turns of phrase, and her inability to establish a coherent timeline or storyline for what she's relating. I made note of more outstanding examples of her jarring images: "In a darkness that deep, fireflies dance across eyes that see into themselves." "Once its sprightly melody had been a favorite of hers, but war plays havoc with sensory memories as the sheer intensity of each moment, the roiling adrenaline and fast pulse, drive memories in deeper, embed every small detail, and make events unforgettable." "Meanwhile, the brain piped fugues of worry and staged mind-theaters full of tragedies and triumphs, because unfortunately, the fear of death does wonders to focus the mind, inspire creativity, and heighten the senses. Trusting one's hunches only seems a gamble if one has time for SEEM...." It seems Ms. Ackerman imagines herself to be the mistress of human senses and is writing beyond her material at hand. Too bad, because she had access to primary sources, to Antonina's extraordinary diary, which I wouldn't have minded reading without its being filtered through this author.

Nonetheless, the awful times in Poland and Warsaw come crashing through Ackerman's writing anyway. One wonders how any people at all survived German barbarity. The story of the Warsaw ghetto and its brave and tortured souls is vividly rendered, although not in a coherent fashion, as one has to dance from one chapter to the next to get a real sense of its nightmarish horror. The Zabinskis, particularly Jan, risked the lives of their son and daughter to harbor utterly wretched Jews ("Guests") in the labyrinthine zoo quarters. Bold young Polish Jews sabatoging the Germans would find a harbor there, even for short periods of time until they could be moved again to another safe harbor in the active Polish underground. It's a terrifying and remarkable story which made me think what I would have done in similar circumstances as a free person, knowing the crass injustices, blatant torture, and outright murder going on around me.

This book also tells of a mother's overpowering love for her son. At every turn, Antonina protected Rys as best she could, with varying degrees of success. We aren't sure of Rys's age, but I guess he was between 8 and 12 during the most awful events. Ackerman constantly returns to this mother/son relationship as a recurring theme, as it must have figured prominently in Antonina's diary.

I wished this story had been handled by another writer, but it hasn't been. It's still worth reading, as the events and tales of rescue and survival are so stirring that even bad prose can't detract from them. So I recommend this book, even if you cringe at the rhetorical nonsense it sometimes contains.

This book recounts one of those odd, quirky episodes in history which illuminate a variety of circumstances and events in a whole new light. When Warsaw fell at the beginning of the Second World War, the city had one of the better-known zoos in Europe. The zookeeper, Jan Zabinski, his wife Antonina, and their son Rys, lived on the grounds in an official residence. Jan served briefly in the army during the fighting, and was captured. He almost immediately had a stroke of luck, though: he met an old friend, a German zookeeper serving in the German army, and the friend escorted Zabinski back to his zoo.

Over the next five years, until the zoo was liberated along with the rest of Warsaw towards the end of the year, the Zabinskis used their positions as zookeeper and wife, and local celebrities, to conceal several hundred Jews and other refugees from the Nazis, some of them hiding in the now disused animal cages on the grounds of the zoo (many of the animals were killed by soldiers, or starved to death). Jan Zabinski was involved in partisan activities, and concealed munitions and other supplies in places he didn't think anyone would look. At the start of the war, it turned out that the Nazis were interested in the zoo for two primary reasons: one, they wanted to "move to safekeeping" any rare animals it had--the safekeeping of course being in a German zoo; and two, they were obsessed with resurrecting extinct species of animal that they thought "wild" and "untamed" and "pure". Because of these obsessions, they let the zoo continue to operate at a lower level much longer than they otherwise would have, and the Zabinskis were able to rescue hundreds of lives as a result.

The author does a reasonably good job of recounting the situation that the war put the Zabinskis in, and she has skill with words and sentences. It is a bit odd for a historian at this level (the book is obviously meant for a general audience) to discuss sources and what people intended for posterity to think with her readers. This leads to some unusual syntax and paragraphs, to say the least, but I found it for the most part interesting and enjoyable. The author pulls no punches, either, though she doesn't draw parallels: the Nazis were the most militant environmentalists and animal rights advocates the world has ever seen. Believe it or not, Hitler outlawed most vivisection and animal testing. They used Jews instead. On one occasion in Ackerman's book, a German scientist is punished for inadequately anesthetizing a worm before conducting an experiment on it.

I enjoyed this book a great deal, and think the general reader will find it fascinating

The age-old symbol of Warsaw is a mermaid wielding a sword. The zookeeper's wife in this book is Antonina Zabinski, an ardent animal lover who seems to have a special connection with animals and who is the wife of the keeper of the Warsaw Zoo when Poland is invaded at the start of World War II. As the war progresses, Antonina becomes a defender of Jews trapped in Warsaw (and effectively doomed to an almost certain death by slow starvation, or otherwise, by the Nazis) by helping to hide and save approximately 300 of them on the grounds of the vast Warsaw Zoo. In effect, Antonina can be seen as a mermaid with a shield defending Jews in Warsaw from the Nazi onslaught.

The book, however, is not just about Antonina. It is also about her husband, Jan, the keeper of the Warsaw Zoo, who fights for Poland at the beginning of the war but is captured and amazingly released, due to the efforts of a German zookeeper. After his release, Jan fights on as an officer in the underground Polish Army and rescues several hundred Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto who find sanctuary on the grounds of the Warsaw Zoo, which the Nazis allow to remain functioning on a limited basis (supposedly because of their love of nature and animals, although some of the gruesome events protrayed in this book tend to discount that supposition) and permit the Zabinski family to continue to live on the grounds of the zoo.

The book is also set against the larger backdrop of the Warsaw Holocaust and continues to the end of the war and shortly thereafter as the Soviets reopen the zoo in 1949 (Jan, however, resigns two years later under the pall of Stalinism).

The author calls her work one of "narrative nonfiction" which apparently means narrative storytelling imbued with facts (e.g., Antonina, who died in 1971, left behind a diary of her wartime experiences) to relate actual events. The book is a wonderful story of courage, faith (the Zabinskis' were Christians), and determination by both Jan and Antonina in the face of horror.

At the start of the 1930s, the zoo in Warsaw was a haven within the city. Jan Zabinski was the zookeeper, and he had charge of lions, elephants, and all the standard animals found in a zoo. He tried to keep the animals humanely, in enclosures that were as close as possible to their natural habitats. He wrote scholarly books about the animals and his profession. He lived in a villa within the grounds of the zoo, with his wife Antonia, who had a special capacity for dealing with animals, sensing their needs, and paying them special attention when they required it. She also was the one to do tours for special visitors since she had a capacity to deal easily with humans as well as animals. Their young son Rys also took part in exercising or feeding the zoo's population. It was idyllic, and of course it was not to stay that way. In _The Zookeeper's Wife: A War Story_ (Norton), poet, novelist, and science writer Diane Ackerman has told a great human story of how the zoo and the Zabinski family played their roles once the Nazis came. The Zabinskis were honored after World War II for their contributions in saving 300 Jews, but Jan said, "I don't understand all the fuss. If any creature is in danger, you save it, human or animal." It sounds just a matter of humane common sense, but this couple deserved the recognition, and deserve this sensitive and exciting account of what they would not have called heroism.

The Warsaw zoo was one of the best in Europe, but became a casualty of the war. Ackerman's description of the effects of the bombs on the zoo is startling, because we are, sadly, used to hearing about the physical effects of war on humans, but not on exotic animals. The exotic animals were shipped to the Berlin zoo (where eventually the ravages of war would come to them as well). The remaining creatures became targets for drunken SS buddies. It was all heartbreaking for the Zabinskis. Jan was active in the clandestine Polish army, and realized that even in its dilapidated state, the zoo might have something to offer the resistance. He arranged for the facilities to be turned into a pig farm, and then a fur farm, supposedly supporting the Nazi effort, but all the while undercutting it. With the bustle of a farming operation, the Zabinskis were able to hide Jews in the cages, in sheds, and in the tunnels beneath them. Antonina did all she could to keep the former zoo cheerful, and to keep it a zoo. The elephants and tigers were gone, but there was a housebroken badger, a rabbit, a hamster, and more. There are many scenes of sweetness between the animals and the humans who love them, but the larger subject prevents any cloying sentiment. Any humor here (and there are some funny parts to the story) is overwhelmed by other details; for instance, Jan and Antonina kept cyanide capsules on their persons at all times, and did have times they thought they were going to have to use them.

No such extremity occurred. With the war over, the zoo reopened in 1949, even with some of the animals that had been transported away years before. Jan was director only briefly; he was a Polish hero, but Stalinism, for obvious reasons, didn't value those who had fought for the Underground. He went on to write many books about zoology and animals, and Antonina wrote books for children and stayed in touch with those that had passed though the zoo during the war. Twenty years after the war, one of those residents remembered, "The Zabinskis' home was a Noah's Ark, with so many people and animals living there." Ackerman has drawn from Antonina's diaries, and frequently quotes from them, and has gone to plenty of archives to tell this story. It is an inspiring tale that reminds us of the importance of animals to people, and that although people have animal natures, sometimes those animal natures result in humane protectiveness and quiet heroism.

This is a non-fiction work about the Holocaust.

From inside the book jacket:
"Jan and Antonia Zabinski were Polish Christian Zookeepers horrified by Nazi racism, who managed to save over three hundred people. Yet their story has fallen through the seams of history.

Drawing on Antonia's diary and other historical sources, best-selling naturalist Diane Ackerman vividly re-creates Antonia Zabinski's life as "the zookeeper's wife" responsible for her own family, the zoo animals, and their "Guests" - Resistance activists and refugee Jews...

...the Zabinski's young son risked his life carrying food to the Guests, while also tending an eccentric array of creatures in the house (pigs, hare, muskrat, foxes and more)"...

From the back of the book jacket:
"Stunning. Ackerman tells this story with a perfect rapport for its main characters, both human and animal. Rarely does one read a book in which the author and the heroine are so magically matched." - Dava Sobel, author of 'The Planets' and 'Galileo's Daughter'"

So, reading those fabulous reviews you would think this was an amazingly moving account of this family's bravery during the war, including stories about the menagerie of animals they kept in their home during that time.

That was what I was expecting. However I felt sadly disappointed and somewhat cheated by this book. I thought that Diane Ackerman failed to bring any vivid recounting to this story. I did not get a sense of Jan or Antonia as real dynamic people. They seemed flat and one-dimensional. Which I thought was odd especially since the author interviewed people who personally knew them as research for this book.

I thought there was a lack of coherence and fluidity to this story. I'm often amazed by non-fiction writers and how they are able to piece history together so seamlessly for their readers. I did not have that feeling at all while reading this book. Diane Ackerman jumps all over the place, even inserting herself in the telling of this story. It's difficult to get a sense of who or how many Guests were staying with the Zabinski's at anytime. Some relatives are mentioned almost as an after thought. As are some details.

I have read several accounts of the Holocaust, and I enjoy reading non-fiction, but this account does not live up to it's billing. There are however a great many factoids included here that I didn't know before. And some really amazing stories of bravery and heroics. Unfortunately the only storytelling that offered any emotion were the quotes from survivors.

I often had a difficult time following the author in understanding what she was trying to communicate, I wondered who said what to whom?

I also thought many times that one additional sentence would have made the information flow together so much more smoothly for the reader, why wouldn't her editor suggest that? It's never a good thing when I start wondering about the editor while I am reading a book.

I was sadly disappointed by this book, I think it could have been an amazing story but...it wasn't.

P.S.
I also wondered why Ackerman was the lucky author to secure the option to write this book? And how did that happen?

In another author's hands, this book could have been amazing and deeply profound. The subject matter is fascinating, and I found myself wanting to know more about the zookeepers, Jan and Antonina, and the people who passed through the zoo during World War II. The problem is that the author spent so much time describing ancillary topics, that I felt this book was very choppy and disjointed. Her ability to dramatize even the most anxious situations was completely lost. I am not sure if she was limited by the amount of information provided in Antonina's diary, but there are numerous accounts of life in the Warsaw Ghetto that she could have tapped into to tell a riveting story.

I am frequent reader of non-fiction and especially World War II accounts, but the way this book was written makes the story drag on and become tedious at times. There were so many animals and people described in short blurbs that it became quite difficult to follow and relate to the individuals in the book. I think more time and attention should have been given to describing the Warsaw ghetto and the Underground instead of spending numerous pages listing and describing insects and other tangential ideas that had very little to do with the story.

Overall, if you are specifically interested in the role that the Warsaw Zoo played in harboring and saving Jews, this is a decent, albeit difficult to read, account. Otherwise, I would seek out other historical accounts of the Holocaust and World War II that will be more captivating.

I noticed in some reviews that people didn't like this book since it was not what they considered to be a "war story." It helps to be familiar with Diane Ackerman's other writings before reading this book. More than the usual books about the casualties of war, atrocities, death camps and human misery which we already can read volumes about, this book is about humans and animals trying to survive in situations few of us can even imagine. Sometimes, just caring for a lone rabbit could help a human survivor give one something else to think about and allow them to hold on to a shred of hope. The zoo and all its inhabitants were the family of Jan, the zookeeper and Antonina, his wife and their young son before and during most of the invasion of Poland by Germany during WWII. A daughter was born in the middle of the chaos and destruction and yet, like the zoo animals and various strays that often became comforting pets, she offered a bit of happiness in unimaginable times of suffering.

The story is woven together in Ackerman's typical style. From her descriptions I began to know and care about the animals as Antonina did. And I ended up grieving for them as well as the humans who loved and cared for them in what was a very special zoo in the heart of Warsaw before the Nazi invasion. The Warsaw zoo was a favorite of Polish families who came to spend time on the beautiful grounds and to see a variety of animals including one of the first of 12 baby elephants born in captivity. Antonina serves as midwife and describes the joy of her birth in detail. The zoo was attempting to house animals in habitats with more natural surroundings, rather than the typical viewing cages. This was the focus of Jan, the zookeeper. Antonina had a special gift for relating to animals--even thinking like them--that would bode well for her in dealing later with the German invaders. During the war they hid and saved hundreds of Jews (or those who did not look "Aryan" enough) in hidden parts of make-shift rooms often adjoining escape routes in and under their home and among the outside zoo cages left vacant by the carnage and theft of the zoo animals. In time, the underground network extended into the heart of the Warsaw ghetto in which they and many others risked their lives housing the hunted or helping them escape.

This book is not easy to read. It was so heartbreaking at times that I couldn't finish chapters without putting it down for a couple of days. It is not a complete downer. There are also hilarious incidents that made me smile as Ackerman describes some of the antics of the animals and some unusual interactions between them and their human companions. Ackerman's primary sources are the journals left by Antonina and are well documented. In the title it's called "A War Story" but it is part of the war we heard little about. Usually one thinks of war in human terms. This has a broader scope in that it includes, along with the horrible loss of human life and possessions, the vast collateral damages of war. There is a loss of habitat and flora that can't be replaced, entire species as well as animals with families, personalities and names are lost. Call parts of it anthropomorphism if you wish, but read this book keeping in mind the bigger picture of what war really costs us all. It's primarily a book about the ability and will to survive. When humans are tested to their limits, the more it seems they could adapt to "animal-like" techiques, often improved their chances. It's also a story about the incredible braveness and self-sacrifice of the Polish people themselves and about how two people and their extended family found a way to make a difference.

"How do you retain a spirit of affection and humor in a crazed, homicidal, unpredictable society?" That is the question Antonina Zabinski -- and her muse, Diane Ackerman -- poise through this unforgettable book.

Jan and Antonina Zbinski were Polish Christian zookeepers who managed to save over three hundred Jews by hiding them in clear sight -- in the empty zoo cages. The premise would stretch credibility, except it's true, and annotated in Antonina's memoirs.

The obvious question from this novel is: who are the animals? We meet a number of animals here -- the badger who, when confronted with the German bombing, knocks on the door of a neighbor for salvation; the young hare who is a carnivore and a comic; the elephant baby Tuzinka, the 12th elephant born in captivity. These loving animals populate the lives of the Zabinskis and their "Guests" -- resistance activists and refugee Jews.

They, along with their "hosts" and other just people such as Janusz Korczak, who accompanied 200 pure and innocent children to their death at Treblinka, are among those who restore one's sense of humanity.

Then there are the others -- the Germans who are committed to destroying not only the lives but the ecology of the Poles whom they conquer. (Germans were rationed over 2,600 calories; Poles around 680; and Jews an astounding 184). Among the more fascinating -- if you can call it that -- conclusions that Ackerman reaches is that the Germans were breeding animals in order to form their own "master race" of extinct and superior animal beings.

This book broke my heart, mended it again, and also gave me a window into an area that -- to my knowledge -- has not been adequately explored: the worship and violation of nature by the Nazis as they sought to control the planet's genome. Just when I thought I knew about the savagery of that period of history, I find that there is more to know. It is one more reason for the world to say, "Never again!"

I have read many touching books about the ordeals of the holocaust victims. And every time I was moved to tears. This story, however, failed to make a connection with me. This was definitely an experience that needed to be written down and passed on. But the writer really didn't do it justice. Instead of bringing the characters alive and letting the reader be part of the events the prose kept you at such distance that it was hard for any emotions to come up. I also felt that the storyline was all over the place. The author gave details where none were needed and distracted from the main story. In other parts it only scratched the surface when the reader longed to know more. Overall, this book is a good example of a fascinating story that was turned into a boring one by bad writing. I would definitely not recommend it.