The Zookeeper's Wife: A War Story

by Diane Ackerman

Overview

The New York Times bestseller now a major motion picture starring Jessica Chastain.1939: the Germans have invaded Poland. The keepers of the Warsaw zoo, Jan and Antonina Zabinski, survive the bombardment of the city, only to see the occupiers ruthlessly kill many of their animals. The Nazis then carry off the prized specimens to Berlin for their program to create the “purest” breeds, much as they saw themselves as the purest human race. Opposed to all the Nazis represented, the Zabinskis risked their lives by hiding Jews in the now-empty animal cages, saving as many as three hundred people from extermination. Acclaimed, best-selling author Diane Ackerman, fascinated both by the Zabinskis’ courage and by Antonina’s incredible sensitivity to all living beings, tells a moving and dramatic story of the power of empathy and the strength of love.A Focus Features release, it is directed by Niki Caro, written by Angela Workman.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393354256
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	02/07/2017
Series:	Movie Tie-in Editions
Edition description:	Movie Tie-in Edition
Pages:	384
Sales rank:	653,857
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 7.50(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Diane Ackerman has been the finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Nonfiction in addition to many other awards and recognitions for her work, which include the best-selling The Zookeeper's Wife and A Natural History of the Senses. She lives in Ithaca, New York.

Editorial Reviews

"It is no stretch to say that this is the book Ackerman was meant to write."

|Los Angeles Times

Diane Ackerman has a molecule named after her (dianeackerone), but perhaps her greatest claim to fame is that all her works are wondrously different. Whether she's writing about "sacred play," the natural history of love, or the alchemy of the mind, she manages to arrest and stimulate our senses. (And, yes, she's written a book about the senses, too. And we haven't even mentioned her verse or her children's books.) The Zookeeper's Wife is a war story unlike any other. A narrative about a Warsaw animal keeper who saves hundreds of Jews from Nazi gas chambers draws inevitable comparisons with Schindler's List, but Ackerman's artful, almost lyrical book occupies a genre of her own invention. Her narrative interlaces stories of Jan and Antonina Zabinski's improvised sanctuary with telling glimpses into the animal societies their hunted benefactors shared. Ultimately, this is a book about what it means to be human.

Nature is patient, people and animals fundamentally decent, and the writer, as she always does, outlives the killer—that is the message of The Zookeeper's Wife. This is an absorbing book, diminished sometimes by the choppy way Ackerman balances Antonina's account with the larger story of the Warsaw Holocaust. For me, the more interesting story is Antonina's. She was not, as her husband once called her, "a housewife," but the alpha female in a unique menagerie. I would gladly read another book, perhaps a novel, based again on Antonina's writings. She was special, and as the remaining members of her generation die off, a voice like hers should not be allowed to fade into the silence.
—The New York Times

D. T. Max

A lovely story about the Holocaust might seem like a grotesque oxymoron. But in The Zookeeper's Wife, Diane Ackerman proves otherwise. Here is a true story—of human empathy and its opposite—that is simultaneously grave and exuberant, wise and playful. Ackerman has a wonderful tale to tell, and she tells it wonderfully.
—The Washington Post

Susie Linfield

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. (Sept.)

Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information

Publishers Weekly

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, LJ5/1/07; for a profile of Ackerman, see "Editors' Fall Picks," p. 32-38.-Ed.]
—Wilda Williams

Library Journal

"I can’t imagine a better story or storyteller. The Zookeeper’s Wife will touch every nerve you have."

Jonathan Safran Foer

"A fresh and compelling addition to Holocaust literature."

San Francisco Chronicle

"Diane Ackerman has surpassed even herself in her latest book, which is alternatingly funny, moving, and terrifying. This powerful thriller would be a great novel—except that it happens to be true."

Jared Diamond

"A poignant and absorbing book."

New York Times Book Review

"A lovely story about the Holocaust might seem like a grotesque oxymoron. But in The Zookeeper’s Wife, Diane Ackerman proves otherwise. Here is a true story—of human empathy and its opposite—that is simultaneously grave and exuberant, wise and playful. Ackerman has a wonderful tale to tell, and she tells it wonderfully."

Washington Post Book World

"Author Diane Ackerman offers us The Zookeeper’s Wife, a tale of untold bravery with a whimsical dose of history reminiscent of Noah’s Ark.… Ackerman’s story is a treatise on nobility—a word that applies to some humans and all the animals in The Zookeeper’s Wife."

USA Today

Suzanne Toren’s respectful reading allows the horror of the Holocaust to emanate from the compelling story of Jan and Antonina Zabinski and the Warsaw Zoo. The zoo is partly destroyed by Nazi bombing in September 1939. Then the best animals are carted off to German zoos, and the Nazis hold a drunken “hunting” festival on New Year’s Eve, killing the rest. In her diary Antonina asks herself: “How many humans will die like this in the coming months?” Jan joins the Polish Resistance, smuggling Jews out of the ghetto and hiding them in the zoo, where Antonina takes care of them. Toren skillfully portrays the fear and revulsion expressed by Antonina in her diary and creates convincing accents for the many Polish characters. A.B. © AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine

APR/MAY 08 - AudioFile