Product Details
ISBN: 9781905847723
Category: The Holocaust
Format: Paperback
Publication Date: 2009-02-03
Publisher: Old Street Publishing
Country of origin: United Kingdom
Pages: 368
Pagination: 368 pages
The Zookeeper's Wife
This is the incredible story of the Warsaw zoo under Nazi occupation. When Germany invaded Poland, Stuka bombers devastated Warsaw - and the city's zoo along with it. With most of their animals dead, zookeepers Jan and Antonina Zabinski - both Christians - allowed Jews to take refuge in the empty cages. Jan, active in the Polish resistance, kept ammunition buried in the elephant enclosure and stashed explosives in the animal hospital. Meanwhile, Antonina kept her unusual household afloat, caring for both its human and its animal inhabitants - otters, a badger, hyena pups, several lynxes...With her exuberant prose and exquisite sensitivity to the natural world, Diane Ackerman engages us wholeheartedly in the lives of the zoo animals, their keepers and their hidden visitors, fugitives from Nazi persecution. Antonina emerges as an unforgettable character, refusing to give in to the fear of discovery, keeping alive an atmosphere of play and innocence even as Europe crumbled around her.