Maintaining secrecy, however, was always a challenge. The zoo became a Noah’s Ark for endangered humans. Many of the people who sheltered there hid out in the now-empty animal enclosures. Through this ordeal over three hundred people were saved with the help of Antonina and others at the Warsaw Zoo and widespread popular support in the city. The zoo functioned as a way-station where Jews fleeing the ghetto could stay until more permanent shelter could be identified by other people and organizations in the widespread Polish resistance.
And some men went to the extreme length of having a medical procedure to reverse their circumcisions. Some made adjustments to their appearance to appear more “Aryan,” some by bleaching their hair.
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Not only did people need documentation, they needed to learn how to pass as Christian, how to behave in church, for example. The complexity of the operation was significant. What was possible, though, was for Antonina and Jan to use the zoo as a refuge for those targeted by the Nazis, for Jews. Many of the animals were taken by a Nazi officer who happened to be in charge of a zoo in Germany.
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Antonina and Jan would take them into their zoo-residence, a villa, creating a very Doctor-Doolittle-like atmosphere.īut sustaining a full zoo in the middle of a blitzkrieg, and then a brutal occupation was impossible. Then, able to adopt their fighting instinct, she arose as a fearless defender of her kind.”It was frequently the case that this or that animal required special care, patching up from an injury, recuperation from an illness. “It wasn’t just that she identified with them,” he explained, “but from time to time she seemed to shed her own human traits and become a panther or a hyena. Jan once said of Antonina “Her confidence could disarm even the most hostile,” he told an anonymous reporter, adding that her strength stemmed from her love of animals. Both were smitten with animals and sought not only to offer an educational experience to the people, primarily the children of Warsaw, but to take the best possible care of their charges. She and her husband, Jan, were in charge of the Warsaw Zoo. Amid the carnage and daily horror, heroes emerged. With the Nazis’ bizarre fixation on racial purity (which extended to animals) and hatred for Jews, it became an existential crisis merely to be Jewish in the city. one puzzle of daily life at the villa was this: How do you retain a spirit of affection and humor in a crazed, homicidal, unpredictable society?On September 1, 1939, Nazi Germany, emboldened by the recently-signed Molotov-Ribbentrop pact with Stalin’s Soviet Union, invaded Poland. one puzzle of daily life at the villa was this: How do you retain a spirit of affection and humor in a crazed, homicidal, unpredictable society?On September 1, 1939, Nazi Germany, emboldened by the recently-signed Molotov-Ribbentrop pact with Stalin’s Soviet Union, invaded Poland. She shows us how Antonina refused to give in to the penetrating fear of discovery, keeping alive an atmosphere of play and innocence even as Europe crumbled around her.more Meanwhile, Antonina kept her unusual household afloat, caring for both its human and its animal inhabitants-otters, a badger, hyena pups, lynxes.With her exuberant prose and exquisite sensitivity to the natural world, Diane Ackerman engages us viscerally in the lives of the zoo animals, their keepers, and their hidden visitors. Jan, active in the Polish resistance, kept ammunition buried in the elephant enclosure and stashed explosives in the animal hospital. Another dozen "guests" hid inside the Zabinskis' villa, emerging after dark for dinner, socializing, and, during rare moments of calm, piano concerts. With most of their animals dead, zookeepers Jan and Antonina Zabinski began smuggling Jews into empty cages. Jan, active in the P When Germany invaded Poland, Stuka bombers devastated Warsaw-and the city's zoo along with it.
When Germany invaded Poland, Stuka bombers devastated Warsaw-and the city's zoo along with it.
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