![]() ![]() As the war escalates Jan becomes increasingly involved in the anti-Nazi resistance. With most of their animals killed, or stolen away to Berlin, zookeepers Jan and Antonina Zabinski begin smuggling Jews into the empty cages. The Zookeeper's Wife will touch every nerve you have' -Jonathan Safran Foer, author of Everything is Illuminated When Germany invades Poland, Luftwaffe bombers devastate Warsaw and the city's zoo along with it. 'I can't imagine a better story or storyteller. Perfect for fans of Lion and Hidden Figures. Now a major motion picture starring Jessica Chastain and Daniel Brühl, Diane Ackerman's The Zookeeper's Wife is based on a remarkable true story of bravery and sanctuary during World War II. ![]() The clotted air hurt to breathe and stank of burning wood, straw, and flesh.In war-torn Warsaw, a zookeeper and his wife refuse to surrender. Two giraffes lay dead on the ground, legs twisted, shockingly horizontal. Some animals, hiding in their cages and basins, became engulfed by rolling waves of flame. Bullets ripped open the aviary nets and parrots spiraled upward like Aztec gods and plummeted straight down, other tropicals hid in the shrubs and trees or tried to fly with singed wings. Glass and metal shards mutilated skin, feathers, hooves, and scales indiscriminately as wounded zebras ran, ribboned with blood, terrified howler monkeys and orangutans dashed caterwauling into the trees and bushes, snakes slithered loose, and crocodiles pushed onto their toes and trotted at speed. Wooden buildings collapsed, sucked down by heat. On that clear day, the sky broke open and whistling fire hurtled down, cages exploded, moats rained upward, iron bars squealed as they wrenched apart. NAZI BOMBERS ATTACKED WARSAW IN 1150 SORTIES, DEVASTATING the zoo, which happened to lie near antiaircraft guns. Visions of their last moments tortured her, and perhaps a fright harder to dispel: What if they turned out to be the lucky ones? "This is how a hunted animal feels," she thought, caught in the melee, "not like a heroine, just madly driven to get home safely at any cost." She remembered the death of Jas and the big cats, shot point-blank by Polish soldiers. Were they even alive, she wondered, and could the teenage boys left in charge really look after them? There seemed no choice: though queasy from fear, she left Rys with her sister-in-law and forced herself to cross the river amid gunfire and shells. No news came of Jan, and the worry allowed her little sleep, but she told herself that she would fail him if she didn't save the zoo's remaining animals. "I'm just like our lioness," she told the others, "fearfully moving my cub from one side of the cage to the other." Then, "in the strangled silence of the morning," she moved Rhys back again to the lampshade store. That night, while bombs sprayed smoke ropes across the sky, she moved Rys to the basement of a nearby church. One day, after a live shell plunged into her building and stuck in the fourth-floor ceiling, she waited for an explosion that never came. For many Warsawians, this feather storm may have conjured up the slaughter of those knights, the city's guardian angels. As they galloped into battle, the wind coursed through the false wings with a loud tornadic whirring that spooked the enemy's horses, which dug in their hooves and refused to advance. Once, long ago, a Polish king repelled invading Turks by attaching large feathered hoops to each soldier's back. Eerier than a blizzard, a bizarre soft cloud of down feathers from the city's pillows and comforters gently swirled above the buildings. ![]() Idn't move like snowflakes, something delicately rising and falling without landing. ![]()
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