The Zookeeper's Wife (2007) (edit title/settings)

Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit see section history

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Characters/People edit see section history

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• Jan Zabinski: Zookeeper at Warsaw Zoo before World War II.
• Antonina Zabinski: Jan's wife.
• Magdalena Gross: Artist that specialized in scupture especially animals. Took residence with teh Zabinskis.
• Wicek: Jan Zabinski owned a Zoo in Poland. The zoo was invaded by Nazis. Though he was christain, he wanted to help the Jews. He hid them in his house. He ended up saving over 300 Jews. 50 rare species were killed when his zoo was invaded. Now, some of those species are extinct.
• Fox Man: Nickname for a man who was assigned to the zoo to raise foxes to supply the German army with fur to stay warm. He helped the Zabinskis in hiding Jews and giving them jobs.
• Balbina: Family cat.
• Lutz Heck: Zookeeper of the Berlin Zoo.
• Teresa: Jan and Antonia's daughter born during the war.
• Rys: Jan and Antonina's son
• Badger: The family Badger.
• Hitler: We all know him...

Quotes edit see section history

• “One of the most remarkable things about Antonina was her determination to include play, animals, wonder, curiosity, marvel, and a wide blaze of innocence in a household where all dodged the ambient dangers, horrors, and uncertainties.”

• “Why was it that animals can sometiems subdue their predatory ways in only a few months, while humans, despite centuries of refinement, can quickly grow more savage than any beast?”

  Antonina Zabinski

• “The beauty and genius of a work of art may be reconceived, though its first material expression be destroyed; a vanished harmony may yet again inspire the composer; but when the last individual of a race of living things breathes no more, another heaven and another earth msut pass before such a one can be again.”

  C. William Beebe

• Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers

• All our senses feed the brain, and if it diets mainly on cruelty and suffering, how can it remain healthy? Change that diet, on purpose, train mentally to refocus the mind, and one nourishes the brain.

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• '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.'

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• Most people know that 30 to 40 percent of the world's Jews were killed during World War II, but not that 80 to 90 percent of the Orthodox community perished, among them many who had kept alive an ancient tradition of mysticism and meditation reaching back to the Old Testament world of the prophets.

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• Under the Third Reich, animals became noble, mythic, almost angelic—including humans, of course, but not Slavs, Gypsies, Catholics, or Jews. Although Mengele's subjects could be operated on without any painkillers at all, a remarkable example of Nazi zoophilia is that a leading biologist was once punished for not giving worms enough anesthesia during an experiment.

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• 'If I maintain my silence about my secret it is my prisoner,' Gdańsk-born philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer wrote in an earlier era, but 'if I let it slip from my tongue, I am its prisoner.'

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• The Poles claim Korczak as a martyr, and the Israelis revere him as one of the Thirty-Six Just Men, whose pure souls make possible the world's salvation. According to Jewish legend, these few, through their good hearts and good deeds, keep the too-wicked world from being destroyed. For their sake alone, all of humanity is spared. The legend tells that they are ordinary people, not flawless or magical, and that most of them remain unrecognized throughout their lives, while they choose to perpetuate goodness, even in the midst of inferno.

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• Antonina wondered if humans might use the same metaphor and picture the war days as 'a sort of hibernation of the spirit, when ideas, knowledge, science, enthusiasm for work, understanding, and love—all accumulate inside, [where] nobody can take them from us.'

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• Why was it, she asked herself, that 'animals can sometimes subdue their predatory ways in only a few months, while humans, despite centuries of refinement, can quickly grow more savage than any beast'?

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• A 2006 study of mitochondrial DNA tracks Ashkenazi Jews (about 92 percent of the world's Jews in 1931) back to four women, who migrated from the Near East to Italy in the second and third centuries. All of humanity can be traced back to the gene pool of one person, some say to a man, some a woman. It's hard to imagine our fate being as iffy as that, but we are natural wonders.

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• Hitler authorized Frank to 'ruthlessly exploit this region as a war zone and booty country, and reduce to a heap of rubble its economic, social, cultural, and political structure.' One of Frank's key tasks was to kill all people of influence, such as teachers, priests, landowners, politicians, lawyers, and artists. Then he began rearranging huge masses of the population: over a span of five years, 860,000 Poles would be uprooted and resettled; 75,000 Germans would take over their lands; 1,300,000 Poles would be shipped to Germany as slave labor; and 330,000 would simply be shot.

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Setting & Locations edit see section history

• Warsaw Ghetto: Where the Jewish people were forced to live after the German's took control.
• Poland: Ukraine country that went under German then Soviet control.
• Old Town: Part of Warsaw where the Zabinskis lived.
• Berlin: Where many of the Warsaw Zoo animals were taken.
• Israel: Many of those saved by the Zabinskis had moved to Israel.
• Praski Park: A park in Warsaw near the Ghetto.
• Vistula River: River that seperates Warsaw.

Organizations edit see section history

• The Underground: Polish people that worked together to hinder the German control of Warsaw.

First Sentence edit see section history

Table of Contents edit see section history

Series & Lists edit see section history

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. Diane Ackerman (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Awards edit see section history

• Orion Book Award (2008)

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: D804.66.Z33 A25 2007
• Dewey: 940.5318350943841

Notes for Parents edit see section history

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Subjects edit see section history

• Books › History › Military › World War II › Europe
• Books › History › World › Jewish › Holocaust
• Books › History › Military › World War II › Personal Narratives
• Books › History › Europe › Poland
• Books › History › Europe › Eastern

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