The Zookeeper's Wife: A War Story by Diane Ackerman
This book follows the life of Antonina Zabinski during Poland's World War II years. Antonina is married to Jan Zabinski, a brilliant naturalist and director of Warsaw's Zoo. During Germany's occupation, Jan is a leader in Poland's rebel forces and uses his connections to smuggle not only ammunition and information, but underground soldiers and persecuted Jews through his abandoned and battered zoo.
Maybe because this book centers on Antonina, who was out of the loop, so to speak, on the specifics of what was happening- Jan often hid things from her to avoid stressing her unnecessarily- this book is light on historical details I wanted to hear about. Who were some of the people that were hiding in the empty zoo cages as the back book cover suggests? A bunch of people, I guess, we only hear about some of them and then only vaguely. We get to learn of the more permanent villa occupants in greater detail, but you still crave more. For people genuinely interested in learning historical accurate information, you'll be disappointed. Worse, Ackerman fancies herself a poet and she gets very flowery in her writing which can be wearing in a nonfiction book. More facts please!
For those who persevere, they will be rewarded by a more in depth rendering of this woman as they get towards the middle of this book. By this time, you'll be numb to Ackerman's verbose writing style and you'll be able to suss out what it was like for this woman, her family and the people she helped.
Among the fascinating details Ackerman mentioned lightly in passing, was Antonina's upbringing (BTW, both of her intellectual parents were murdered by the Bolsheviks) and what they knew about the "final solution" (did the local populace know the Jews were marked for extinction or were they just aware of gross persecution? check somewhere else to find out). But you will learn a lot about the insect collection of a friend of the Zabinski's and linden trees and buffalo...
I wish I could recommend this book, but I can't. Wait for the inevitable movie to come along with this title, maybe they'll get it right. Even better, maybe they'll publish a translation of Antonina Zabinski's diary, which Diane Ackerman used for inspiration, and we'll get the firsthand account of this heroic story without the wordy dilutions.
