The Zookeeper's Wife: A War Story

The author introduces the two main characters: Jan the director of the Warsaw Zoo, and Antonina, his wife. They meet at the Academy of Fine Arts, where each expresses a love of nature and animals. Antonina is the daughter of a railroad engineer who traveled through Russia. A very plain-spoken man, he and his wife were shot by the Bolsheviks during the Russian Revolution in 1917. After her father’s death, Antonina went to Uzbekistan to study piano and then to Warsaw to study languages. She and Jan marry in 1931.

The zoo is a new endeavor for Warsaw, though most of the major cities in Europe began developing zoos in the early 20th century. Jan jumps at the chance to become the second official zookeeper. Antonina has a special gift for getting animals to trust her. Ackerman writes, “Jan, a devout scientist, credited Antonina with the ‘metaphysical waves’ of a nearly shamanistic empathy when it came to animals” (12). The author describes Warsaw and the 1930s as an extremely vibrant place, full of natural beauty, creativity, and nightlife.

Jan’s vision for the zoo is ahead of its time—rather than locking animals in small cages, as most early-20th-century zoos did, he wants to show them in their natural habitats. He involves his wife in this fully: “[B]esides running the household and nursing sick animals, [Antonina] greeted distinguished guests from Poland and abroad and welcomed press or government officials” (18). Ackerman describes the great variety of animals at the zoo and the work Jan and Antonina do to enlarge it, welcome all manner of people into it, and create a place of connection between nature and humans—particularly between animals and humans. She writes, “Antonina felt convinced that people needed to connect more with their animal nature, but also that animals long for human company, reach out for human attention with a yearning that is somehow reciprocal” (21-22).

Ackerman describes the meeting of the Żabińskis and Polish sculptor Magdalena Gross, who grows to be a close friend of the family. In the summer of 1939, Jan works diligently to complete his vision for the Warsaw Zoo. Meanwhile, Polish people are concerned about deteriorating relations between Germany and Poland. Having already occupied the whole of former Czechoslovakia, Hitler insists that he must recover some Polish territory as well. Most citizens, however, do not believe this disagreement will lead to war.

Ackerman introduces Ryś, the Żabińskis’ young son. Like his parents, Ryś enjoys animals and is a dedicated junior zookeeper. The Żabińskis love to take animals to their summer cottage along a river outside of Warsaw. Ryś’s special pet is Badger, whom he raises and house trains and who remains a constant companion of the family.

On September 1, 1939, Antonina’s worst fears come to pass when the Germans invade Poland. In response, Polish soldiers take up positions near the zoo. Soon, planes begin to fly over Warsaw, dropping bombs. Jan joins the army, sending Antonina and Ryś to a resort village 25 miles away. En route, Antonina and other civilians are strafed and fired upon indiscriminately by the Germans: “Catching a bullet was sheer chance and for seven hours Antonina beat the odds, but not without scenes of the dead and dying etched into memory” (36).

Four days later, Antonina returns to Warsaw to discover that the zoo has been targeted because it was so close to Polish military supplies. Ackerman describes the devastation of the zoo as a result of extensive bombing that destroyed buildings and killed many of the animals.

The zoo might still be attacked, and Jan is absent, serving with the military, so Antonina takes her son to a small lampshade store where two elderly women take them in. In the little building full of antiques, they find many other refugees from the war.

Britain and France, they learn, have declared war on Germany. However, as valiant as the Polish people are, they are fighting a superior enemy. Many days go by without any news from Jan, and Antonina wonders how she can rescue any surviving zoo animals.

Antonina returns to the zoo to search for any animals that have survived so she can provide for them. She finds many of the animals lying dead, though some have miraculously survived. She learns that the Polish army is out of ammunition and will soon surrender to the Germans.

After escaping to the countryside with other soldiers, Jan spends two weeks trying to find his way back into Warsaw. He encounters an old friend, a Nazi officer who was a zoo director in Prussia. The friend “arrests” Jan so he can drive him back into Warsaw and release him to find Antonina. Upon returning to the zoo with Jan and seeing the desolation, Antonina is overwhelmed.

Hitler appoints Hans Frank to be the governor of Poland. Frank’s intention is to eliminate the Jews and turn the Polish people into perpetual servants, first executing all the Polish intelligentsia, artists, and political leaders. Simultaneously, a resistance movement called the Home Army arises and begins to sabotage the Nazis.

As the family struggles to get through the winter of 1939 with few resources, they receive contact from Lutz Heck, another Nazi zoo director. He sends a message that he wants to visit and help them rebuild the zoo. Heck is attracted to Antonina, something both of the Żabińskis realize and decide to use to their advantage in dealing with him. Since they cannot refuse this visit from a high-ranking member of the Nazi party, they make plans to meet him with a great deal of anxiety.

Heck was a close friend of German Vice-Chancellor Hermann Göring. Like many high-ranking Nazis, Heck and Göring shared the dream of reengineering certain lost species of European animals whose bloodlines the Nazis believed had been “corrupted” by “lesser” animals, in the same way they thought that European bloodlines had been “corrupted” by Jews, Slavic people, and Gypsies. Ackerman describes the appeal of this notion to the Nazis, whose ideology was rooted in myths of lost greatness. The author writes:

The roots of Nazism fed on a lively occultism […] that believed in a race of Aryan god-men and the urgency of exterminating all inferiors. They exalted superhuman ancestors, whose ancient gnostic rule brought the Aryans wisdom power and prosperity (71).

Heck’s desire to recreate extinct species of animals was actually fueled by his intention to create game refuges where Nazi leaders could hunt animals they had helped drive to extinction.

Jan and Antonina were anxious about their meeting with Heck. Ackerman writes that Antonina “found Heck a true German romantic, naive in his political views and conceited perhaps, but courtly and impressive” (74). He told them he wanted to save the remaining precious animals they had by moving them to his zoo in Berlin as a loan until the war ended. Though they knew he was lying, there was little they could do to prevent him from stealing their remaining rare animals.

The author contrasts the Holocaust with other episodes of ethnic cleansing in the 20th century. She situates the Nazis’ attempt to eliminate those they deemed “inferior” within a long history of ethnic and racial violence in Europe, noting that this violence has always been disproportionately directed against Jewish people. Then, she explains how the atrocities of the Nazis stand out as distinct from all others:

The Holocaust was different, far more premeditated, high tech and methodical, and, at the same time more primitive, as biologist LeComte du Noüy argues in La dignite humane (1944): Germany’s crime is the greatest crime the world has ever known, because it is not on the scale of history: it is on the scale of evolution (79).

Even though Jan knew that they were losing their precious animals permanently to the Nazis, he was pleased to secure permission to start a pig farm on the site of the former zoo. The pig farm would not only supply meat and other goods to people in and out of the Ghetto, but it would also allow him to maintain the zoo as a site for Home Army underground activities.

Ackerman contrasts the dormancy of the zoo, as the Żabińskis attempt to rebuild it, with the budding malevolence of the Nazis as they slowly try to choke the life out of Warsaw in general and its Jewish population in particular.

The family gets by on food stamps and the daily loaf of bread Antonina bakes from the grain she has set aside. By March 1940, Jan has the pig farm in full gear. One result of this is the acquisition of a new pet for Ryś, a piglet named Moryś that Ryś keeps in the house. Despite all this hopeful activity, Jan’s main objective is “using the zoo as an Underground depot” (87), a staging ground from which to plan and carry out acts of resistance against the Nazi occupation.