The Zookeeper's Wife

Starred review from July 23, 2007
Ackerman (A Natural History of the Senses
) tells the remarkable WWII story of Jan Zabinski, the director of the Warsaw Zoo, and his wife, Antonina, who, with courage and coolheaded ingenuity, sheltered 300 Jews as well as Polish resisters in their villa and in animal cages and sheds. Using Antonina's diaries, other contemporary sources and her own research in Poland, Ackerman takes us into the Warsaw ghetto and the 1943 Jewish uprising and also describes the Poles' revolt against the Nazi occupiers in 1944. She introduces us to such varied figures as Lutz Heck, the duplicitous head of the Berlin zoo; Rabbi Kalonymus Kalman Shapira, spiritual head of the ghetto; and the leaders of Zegota, the Polish organization that rescued Jews. Ackerman reveals other rescuers, like Dr. Mada Walter, who helped many Jews “pass,” giving “lessons on how to appear Aryan and not attract notice.” Ackerman's writing is viscerally evocative, as in her description of the effects of the German bombing of the zoo area: “...the sky broke open and whistling fire hurtled down, cages exploded, moats rained upward, iron bars squealed as they wrenched apart.” This suspenseful beautifully crafted story deserves a wide readership. 8 pages of illus.

Starred review from September 1, 2007
The 1939 Nazi bombing of Warsaw left its beloved zoo in ruins with many of its animals killed or wounded. Worse was to come when Berlin zoo director Lutz Heck had surviving rare species shipped back to Germany as part of a Nazi breeding program and held a New Year's Eve hunting party for German officers to finish off the remaining animals. Witnessing this horror was the zookeeper's wife, who wondered, as she recalled later in her memoirs, how many humans would die in the same manner in the coming months. As Antonina Zabinski and her husband, Jan, soon learned, the Nazis had targeted Poland's large Jewish population for extermination, and the couple, who were already supplying food to friends in the Warsaw Ghetto, pledged to help more Jews. And help they did. Ackerman's ("A Natural History of the Senses") moving and eloquent narrative reveals how the zookeepers, with the aid of the Polish underground, boldly smuggled some 300 Jews out of the Ghetto and hid them in their villa and the zoo's empty cages. Based on Antonina's own memoirs and newspaper interviews, as well as Ackerman's own research in Poland, the result is an exciting and unforgettable portrait of courage and grace under fire. While some critics might feel she glosses over Polish anti-Semitism, Ackerman has done an invaluable service in bringing a little-known story of heroism and compassion to light. Highly recommended. [See Prepub Alert, "LJ" 5/1/07; for a profile of Ackerman, see "Editors' Fall Picks," p. 3238.Ed.]Wilda Williams, "Library Journal"

Copyright 2007 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from August 1, 2007
Jan Zabinski, theinnovative director of the Warsaw Zoo, and Antonina, his empathicwife, lived joyfully on the zoo grounds during the 1930s with their young son, Ryszard (Polish for lynx), and a menagerie of animals needing special attention. The zoo was badly damaged by the Nazi blitzkrieg, andtheir bit of paradise would have been utterly destroyed but for the director of the Berlin Zoo, Lutz Heck, who wanted Jans help in resurrecting extinct pure-blooded species in pursuit ofAryan perfection in the animal kingdom. Resourceful and courageous, the Zabinskis turned the decimated zoo into a refugeand saved the lives of several hundred imperiled Jews. Ackerman has written many stellar works, including A Natural History of the Senses (1990) and An Alchemy of Mind (2004), but this is the book she was born to write. Sharing the Zabinskis knowledge of and reverence for the natural world and drawing on her poets gift for dazzling metaphor, she captures with breathtaking precision and discernment our kinship with animals, thebarbarity of war, Antoninas unbounded kindness and keen delight in lifes sensory bazaar, Jansdaring work with the Polish Underground, and the audacity of the Zabinskis mission of mercy. An exemplarywork of scholarship and an ecstasy of imagining, Ackermansaffecting tellingof the heroic Zabinskis dramaticstoryilluminates the profound connection between humankind and nature, and celebrates lifes beauty, mystery, and tenacity.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2007, American Library Association.)