With her exquisite sensitivity to the natural world, Ackerman explores the role of nature in both kindness and savagery, and she unravels the fascinating and disturbing obsession at the core of Nazism: both a worship of nature and its violation, as humans sought to control the genome of the entire planet. Beautiful Zoo - Searching for the House from The Zookeepers Wife.
With animal names for these 'guests,' and human names for the animals, it's no wonder that the zoo's code name became 'The House Under a Crazy Star. After their zoo was bombed, Polish zookeepers Jan and Antonina Zabinski managed to save over three hundred people from the Nazis by hiding refugees in the empty animal cages.
With hidden people having animal names, and pet animals having human names, it's a small wonder the zoo's code name became "The House under a Crazy Star." Yet there is more to this story than a colorful cast. A true story in which the keepers of the Warsaw Zoo saved hundreds of people from Nazi hands. Jan led a cell of saboteurs, and the Zabinski's young son risked his life carrying food to the guests, while also tending to an eccentric array of creatures in the house (pigs, hare, muskrat, foxes, and more). Yet their story has fallen between the seams of history.ĭrawing on Antonina's diary and other historical sources, bestselling naturalist Diane Ackerman vividly re-creates Antonina's life as "the zookeeper's wife," responsible for her own family, the zoo animals, and their "guests": resistance activists and refugee Jews, many of whom Jan had smuggled from the Warsaw Ghetto. its a small wonder the zoos code name became 'The House under a Crazy Star.' Yet there is more to this story than a colorful cast. while also tending to an eccentric array of creatures in the house (pigs, hare, muskrat, foxes, and more).
Jan and Antonina Zabinski were Polish Christian zookeepers horrified by Nazi racism, who managed to save over three hundred people. Learn more about The Zookeepers Wife in the Central Rappahannock Regional Library digital collection.