Diane Ackerman

A War Story

Zookeeper's Wife

Documents the heroic true story of Warsaw Zoo keepers and resistance activists Jan and Antonina Zabinski, who in the aftermath of Germany's invasion of Poland saved the lives of hundreds of Jewish citizens by smuggling them into empty cages and their home villa. 70,000 first printing.

The Zookeeper's Wife

Sarah Sammis

The Zookeeper's Wife by Diane Ackerman was on my wishlist. I can't remember why exactly it was on my list. Maybe I read a review or maybe one of my book group friends was reading it. Anyway, a copy appeared at a recent book club meeting and I had to snatch it up.

The book is the account of the Poland Zoo during WWII and the Zabinski family who ran the zoo. With the Nazis at their zoo they worked with the resistance and hid Jews in plain sight.

But the book is more than just their heroic efforts. It's the story of Warsaw, the zoo, the animals, the ghetto and how all those pieces come together.

Some readers complain about the book's tendency towards listing things. Maybe it's because I'm a library science student now. Or maybe it's because I'm a list maker. I liked the lists: bugs, animals, musicians, and so forth. I found that they enriched the book.

Documents the heroic true story of Warsaw Zoo keepers and resistance activists Jan and Antonina Zabinski who, in the aftermath of Germany's invasion of Poland, saved the lives of hundreds of Jewish citizens by smuggling them into empty cages and their home villa. Reprint. 70,000 first printing.

The Zookeeper's Wife: A War Story

Right now, there is enough suffering the world that I don’t need to consume it for entertainment in my spare time. We experience and see enough suffering in real life. Onto lighter reads. 

cedar winslow

Colleen

2 Stars

Sometimes I have to take a big breathe and brace myself before I start a review. 

...

Ok, I should probably start by clearly stating that my low rating is in no way reflective of the real people who lived through those horrific events. This is a story of brave people trying to survive and help others survive. They lived through horrors that most of us (hopefully and thankfully) will never experience. No, my low rating is entirely because this book did not do their story justice. 

The first thing that bothered me was the discovery that the person this book focuses on, Antonina Zabinski, published a memoir on this subject. It took me a little while to find it on goodreads partly because it has not been translated into English and partly because it is under her real name, Antonina Żabińska, not the Angilicized version. I would much rather read a first hand account than fragmented quotes dropped choppily into a rambling narrative. 

Ackerman leans heavily towards purple prose. She spends pages describing sights and sounds and smells yet somehow failing to paint a vivid picture. She is clearly an avid naturalist. That seems much more to be her passion than history considering how often she waxed poetic about animals. This book should probably have been titled "The Zoo," because it is more about the zoo and its animals than it is about Nazis and Jewish refugees. 

There is SO much filler. And most of it was irrelevant to the core story. By far the worst was a full page spent describing the lamps that might have been in a shop Antonina was in. Why??
 Much of the filler was about animals. I am very interested in animals and science, so I was able to make it through those sections. But if a reader opens this book expecting it to truly focus on Jewish refugees evading Nazis then they will probably be brought to a screeching halt by the detailed descriptions of how the animals smelled, the thorough accounts of breeding and genetics, and the extensive explanation of taxonomic classification particularly in relation to insects. If this paragraph made you zone out, then you probably won't make it through The Zookeeper's Wife.

Speaking of animal info, it seems awful to say, but there were many times when I had a strong suspicion that the author was more passionate about the animals than the people. There is also a great deal of anthropomorphism which is largely frowned upon by the scientific community. But time and again, Ackerman brought the focus back to the animals. Even her conclusion indicates that. She rushes past telling what happened to the main characters so that she can once again wax poetic about animals and nature. Her emphasis often seemed to be that without animals, none of the refugees would have been saved. 
"One often recognizes only in hindsight a coincidence or unlikely object that altered fate. Who would have imagined that a zealous professor's cavalcade of pinned beetles would open the gate from the Ghetto for so many people." This book is extremely bias for a historical account. First there is the matter of how obsessed Ackerman was with Antonina. She clearly identifies with Anotinina's connection with animals and devotes many pages to relaying it. Then there is the large amount of Presentism - Ackerman views everything from the twenty-first century. She frequently jumped ahead to talk about how things look post war, describing modern museums, etc. Everything was told from a modern view with modern biases. She tried to tie events from WWII to more modern events such as the Rwandan genocide.

The narrative jumped around far too much. Back and forth. Past and present. The middle of the war, the end, the beginning, a different part of the middle... it had no continuity. Often times people were mentioned never to be mentioned again. Other times, minor people who had no bearing on the story were given pages of description seemingly for no reason other than the author wanted to include her research on them. 

But by far the worst part of this book was the massive amount of guesswork:
"As Antonina's eyes traveled the room, she would have seen fixtures popular during the 1930's."
"What else might have been discussed at the daily meetings?"
"It's likely he demanded progress reports and chivvied the foreman."
"We may well have done the same to other lines of humans."
"He may well have been influenced by Darcy Wentworth Thompson's charming classic."
"He and Jan would have discussed raising rare animals."
"Before the war, Magdalena would surely have studied Rodin."
"Electric fences were available to Jan, who may well have priced one."
"We don't know what Antonina did to ease the pincers of uncertainty, but Jan once informed a journalist that she had been raised a strict Catholic, and since she'd had both children baptized, and always wore a medallion around her neck, she most likely prayed."
"The bleach and recipe Antonina used may well have come from their salon." 
"Jan is not in the photograph, but it can hardly be a coincidence that, as the caption notes, they nicknamed the elephantine vehicle 'Jaś.'"
"He may have felt obliged to retire."
"He recalled that at 7 A.M. on August 1, a girl came to summon him for battle. This would have been someone like the Home Army messenger Halina Dobrowolska, whom I met one sunny summer afternoon in Warsaw." 
"He cupped Antonina's hand and kissed it. One can be certain of that, since it was the custom, but not how this "true German romantic" might have kissed it. Casually or with a flourish? Lips touching the skin or hovering a breath away? As with a handshake, a hand kiss ma reflect subtle feelings - a salute to femininity, a quaking heart, a grudging obedience, a split second of crypto-devotion." Those are just some of the MANY examples of conjecture throughout the book. That last one is a prime example of huge guesswork and then dragging it out into bombastic filler. Considering that the author had access to Antonina's diaries and memoir as well as many other record's and personal account, and also considering how short this book is, it is appalling how much speculative waffling this book holds. The word "might" was used seventy times in this book. And then there are all of the "may have's," "probably's," and "possibly's."

The ending was abrupt and unsatisfying, and the author talked more about animals and nature and how important they are. Which, to be fair, they are. But again, I was expecting a human piece about outsmarting Nazis to save lives. Then the author ends by inserting herself and her opinions about present day Warsaw. 

This should have been an emotional - but factual! - true account of brave people who have been largely forgotten. Instead, their story was further truncated by an unfocused writer prone to red herrings and bombastic filler. This was a massively disappointing book.


RATING FACTORS:
Ease of Reading: 2 Stars
Writing Style: 1 Star
Engagement Level: 2 Stars
Attention to Details: 2 Stars
Emotional Level: 2 Stars
Plot Structure and Development: 1 Star
Objectivity: 1 Star

Nick Gracilla

** spoiler alert **
           This is an odd read: on the one hand, the curious going-ons of animals exotic and not and their caretakers; on the other, the systematic terror of the Nazi plan to eradicate the Jews and their sickening pseudo scientific theories to justify why. Hundreds of thousands of citizens aided in ways great and small—while the Jewish Ghetto, the zoo, and Warsaw itself were eradicated. The writings at times was overly dear for my tastes; the wandering storyline surprising given the gravity of the war.

Caroline Lewicki

An interesting take on the lives of people during World War 2. I had never read anything about this book, not even a blurb, so I had no idea what to expect, and this was touching. 

I really enjoyed the historical aspect of the book. While it is told more like a story than someone's personal history, you get a very rich, detailed background about Antonina's life and life in Warsaw during World War 2. Antonina's story is not one you hear commonly, but it's such a powerful story about doing what's right in times of harrowing adversity.

Also, there's lots of animals and that made me happy.

Melody Izard

More reasons to hate the Nazis. Not only did they want to wipe out a whole ethnic group but they also planned to engage their same genetic cleansing tactics to animals; destroying animals from some parts of the world and recreating animals with pure bloodlines. The Zookeeper’s Wife is a true story of the zookeeper of the Warsaw Zoo and his wife who helped 100s of people survive during WWII by hiding them from the Germans. They also try to protect and care for a variety of animals that meander through their life and the zoo grounds. Extremely painful to read sometimes – but a wonderful story.

Jeni Enjaian

When I first started reading this book, I mistakenly believed that I was about to embark on a novel, not another journey through true history. I found myself quite glad of that fact. (My mistake in the identity of the book comes from the fact that it has been made into a movie, something that my brain failed to realize also happens with nonfiction books as well.) 

At times I thought I would genuinely enjoy the book. Ackerman has an engaging style but her narrative weaves throughout time without careful attention to historical details, something her background in poetry and other more literary works lends her writing towards. For example, around the 40% mark of the book, Ackerman mentions that the titular character suffers from a malady that leaves her bedridden and while describing this malady, mentions that she is pregnant. Due to the weaving of the timelines, I mistakenly assumed that the titular character was pregnant in late 42-43 not 43-44 and kept wondering if Ackerman would ever mention this child again.

I loved the new history that I learned. However, I wish a better historian had told this story.

Carla Aquino

2 stars only because it did not read like an actual story or novel. It felt more like a timeline with a little bit of story in between. I do give the author credit for all the research and interviews that were needed to make this possible. I could only imagine the journey and countless hours of studying history through this time period in Warsaw that it took to provide a story at all. However, it still lacked something that makes it read like a story. At times I felt it read like a history textbook.

Also I do not want to read another WWII novel at all this year. I am going to try my hardest to stay away from this particular genre this year. I need fantasy and sci-fi in my life right now. Something to ignite my imagination and get away from war and gloom!

Zookeeper's Wife A War Story

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