He wrote an astonishing number of books about animals and conservation, 50. The Russian communists that ruled Poland didn’t think good of the people that fought in the Underground. Sadly, after only two years, he had to retire. They tried to rob Antonina, but she managed to stop them by saying in Russian: “Your mother! Your wife! Your sister!” I mentioned this before, in Michael of Romania by Ivor Porter. Approximately one twelfth of the population would risk their lives to save their Jew neighbours.Īfter the Germans were driven out of Warsaw, the Russians arrived to “save them”. When they started to realize what happens to the Jews, the Poles took action. Despite what happened, when the zoo still had a few animals, people would send them vegetable peelings, so did restaurant owners too. He released him in Warsaw, as he promised.Īckerman doesn’t shy away from sharing harrowing figures, like 860,000 Poles being resettled so 75,000 Germans could take over their lands, 1,300,000 Poles were sent as slaves in Germany, and 330,000 were shot. Another German, Muller, helped them, by falsely arresting Jan so he could bring him back to the zoo. One German, Heck, took many of their animals for his breeding programs, before coming with a party and shooting the rest of the animals in their cages for sport. As Antonina lost her parents in the First World War, so she was not thinking of a second war.Īfter the war started, they had to deal with Germans they knew and worked with, zookeepers themselves. The Poles thought that their alliance with France will protect them. Antonina took her son on holiday and also took the cockatoo prone to dizziness and a baby badger just before the war started. Jan wanted to create enclosures that were allowing the animals to live in a way as natural as possible. Jan and Antonina Zabinski were amazing, they took so many risks, carried with them a cyanide pill in case they would needed it, and they saved hundreds of people and animals. There is an ecranisation, but the movie is not as good as the book, from the reviews I’ve read. Do read that article, it only shows how contemporary problems are the same as the ones from before my mother was born. I found an emotional and both lovely and heartbreaking story on National Geographic about the rescue of the last animals from Aleppo in 2017. After reading the book, I looked online to see details about the zoos in Syria. It’s not something that talked about in the news section (personally I think too much emphasis is placed on sport and weather instead of international stories). I never considered what happened to the animals at the zoos in recent wars. The Zookeeper’s Wife is the real story of Polish zookeepers Jan and Antonina Zabinski, written by Diane Ackerman, a storyteller that did extensive research for his book. I found it at the library and borrowed it. I’ve read a recommendation for this book and I was intrigued.
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