3 minute read
The Zookeeper’s Wife - Abby Reschke
aegis 2008
Ackerman, Diane. The Zookeeper’s Wife. Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc., 2007.
Abby Reschke
“I only did my duty – if you can save somebody’s life, it’s your duty to try.” (315) This was the simple and essential thought-process of Jan and Antonina Zabinski during WWII. Together and with the help of 70,000 – 90,000 other Warsaw citizens, they saved the lives of thousands of escaping Jews. Jan and Antonina Zabinski were the proud owners and founders of the Warsaw zoo. Throughout their lives they worked hard to preserve the lives of many animals including the prized Przywalski horses, lynxes, bison, and their zoo even harbored the birth of the twelfth elephant born in captivity. However, it is their preserving of the human species that they are most noted for. Having worked with animals their entire lives, many of them being raised or nursed back to health within their own home, Jan and Antonina had a special connection with animals. “At a moment’s notice, she can lose her Homo Sapiens nature and transform herself into a panther, badger, or muskrat!” (235) Having this innate ability allowed Jan and Antonina to ‘transform’ themselves and think like the German Nazi’s during WWII. With their ability to think like the Nazi’s, Jan and Antonina were able to sense what would tip them off and how to remain on their good side. As a result, during WWII they saved roughly 300 lives through their affiliation with the Underground Peasant Movement. They didn’t risk their lives just because they felt it was their duty to save escaping Jews, but also because Jan felt a “moral indebtedness” to them. (111) After several bombs fell on their zoo, many animals escaped, and those remaining whom the Nazi’s deemed dangerous were shot point blank. This left their zoo mostly uninhabited, and with Jan and Antonina being very clever and creative, they realized that they would be able to house escaping Jews in the now empty cages. Every arriving escapee had an animal name and every animal remaining in the zoo had a human name, making it not only confusing to normal houseguests, but even more confusing to any Nazi over hearing a conversation. “The Zabinski’s home was Noah’s Ark, with so many people and animals hidden there.” (310) Jan knew that he needed to keep his zoo so he could remain a part of the underground and he knew that the only way to do this was to show the Nazi’s that his property had use for them. So Jan used some land and created a park where off duty Nazi’s could wander, relax, and reminisce about their homeland. Much of their remaining land was used for various temporary functions such as raising pigs for Nazi consumption and even raising foxes for fur. With the Nazi’s constantly on their property Antonina and Jan along with all of their guests (legal and illegal) knew they had to be on their toes at all times. The phrase of ‘keep your friends close and your enemies closer’ worked wonders for them. “Knowing the German mentality, they would never expect any kind of Underground activity in a setting so
exposed to public view.” (113) Antonina and Jan battled throughout the entire war to find new and creative ways to help save more Jews and to keep themselves and their many illegal actions undiscovered. They even battled being separated several times not knowing if the other remained alive and well. The Zookeeper’s Wife tells a true, documented, and heavily researched tale of two heroes during WWII. It is captivating, candid, and intensely emotional. Jan and Antonina unselfishly dedicated five years of their lives to save “people stripped of everything but their lives.” (266) Rescuers of this war, like Jan and Antonina, although they “held solemn principles worth dying for, they didn’t regard themselves as heroic.” (315) Simply stated, they “did it because it was the right thing to do.” (315)
