The Zookeeper's Wife Sparknotes

In Diane Ackerman’s book The Zookeeper’s Wife, the main characters, Jan and Antonina Żabiński, were zookeepers in Warsaw, Poland. Jan and Antonina Żabiński met at the College of Agriculture, where they bonded over their love for animals. A year later they are married and have a son named Ryszard which means lynx in Polish. After about eight years, the Żabiński’s dream of creating a natural habitat zoo has almost been accomplished. Antonina has a sixth sense for animals’ health, and uses it to cure sick animals until eventually they become healthy enough that they can live at the zoo. Although Jan and Antonina’s dreams seem to be coming true, Germany and the rest of Europe begin to have tumult. Antonina, trying to keep her son away from the

When they deem it safe to return, they are shocked to find that their precious animals have been killed by the bombings and the zoo is torn apart. Antonina cannot keep Ryszard safe at the zoo, so she takes him to a series of secret places throughout the city that are safe and unknown to the Germans. Antonina is surprised at the number of generous people she finds that are willing to provide shelter and the only food they have to help keep her and her son alive. Jan is now more than ever determined to join and help the Underground Polish Resistance. The Underground Polish Resistance is a group whose main goal is to hide and help keep alive, not only Jews but any group of people the Germans do not see fit to live anymore. The Żabiński’s receive some unusual help from Lutz Heck, a German zookeeper who is interested in keeping the main bloodlines of Poland’s animals alive. He suggests the Żabiński’s send over any of their unique Poland animals to his zoo, to keep them safe until the end of the war. Although the Żabiński’s do not trust Heck they both agree that loaning their animals to him until the end of the war is the safest option for the animals and will allow them to keep more people safe in their

Everyone was looking over their shoulder for ground attacks or looking at the sky preparing themselves for surprise bombings. In her book, Ackerman says “Suffering took hold of me like a magic spell abolishing all differences between friends and strangers.” (Ackerman). World War II was a time of hiding in cramped spaces and giving the weakest your last bite and giving up the shirt on your back, it was a time when people didn’t care if they were best friends or strangers before the war because they were all trying to survive. It didn’t matter whether someone was a shop owner or the mayor, because nobody had any power to do anything to help one another. Everyone was an equal while the war was in motion and therefore everyone helped everyone whether they were friends or not. Ackerman says “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.” (Ackerman), Nazi Germany wasn’t just out to rule all of Europe. They were out to create a whole new perfect population of purely blue-eyed blondes. Over 60 million people were killed during the war, which was about 3% of the world population in 1939. “Every day our life was full of thoughts of the horrible present, and even our own death.” (Ackerman). There was not a day that went by that people were not scared. During this time