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The Zookeeper's Wife: A War Story
(Adobe EPUB eBook, Kindle Book, OverDrive Read)

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Published:
W. W. Norton & Company 2008
Accelerated Reader:
IL: UG - BL: 9.3 - AR Pts: 16
Status:
Available from OverDrive
Description

The New York Times bestseller now a major motion picture starring Jessica Chastain.



A true story in which the keepers of the Warsaw Zoo saved hundreds of people from Nazi hands.


Jan and Antonina Zabinski were Polish Christian zookeepers horrified by Nazi racism, who managed to save over three hundred people. Yet their story has fallen between the seams of history. Drawing on Antonina's diary and other historical sources, best-selling naturalist Diane Ackerman vividly re-creates Antonina's life as "the zookeeper's wife," responsible for her own family, the zoo animals, and their "Guests"—Resistance activists and refugee Jews, many of whom Jan had smuggled from the Warsaw Ghetto. Ironically, the empty zoo cages helped to hide scores of doomed people, who were code-named after the animals whose names they occupied. Others hid in the nooks and crannies of the house itself.


Jan led a cell of saboteurs, and the Zabinskis' young son risked his life carrying food to the Guests, while also tending an eccentric array of creatures in the house. With hidden people having animal names, and pet animals having human names, it's small wonder the zoo's codename became "The House Under a Crazy Star."


Yet there is more to this story than a colorful cast. With her exquisite sensitivity to the natural world, Diane Ackerman explores the role of nature in both kindness and savagery, and she unravels the fascinating and disturbing obsession at the core of Nazism: both a worship of nature and its violation, as humans sought to control the genome of the entire planet.

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Format:
Adobe EPUB eBook, Kindle Book, OverDrive Read
Street Date:
09/17/2008
Language:
English
ISBN:
9780393069358
ASIN:
B0041T586W
Accelerated Reader:
UG
Level 9.3, 16 Points
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Citations
APA Citation (style guide)

Diane Ackerman. (2008). The Zookeeper's Wife: A War Story. W. W. Norton & Company.

Chicago / Turabian - Author Date Citation (style guide)

Diane Ackerman. 2008. The Zookeeper's Wife: A War Story. W. W. Norton & Company.

Chicago / Turabian - Humanities Citation (style guide)

Diane Ackerman, The Zookeeper's Wife: A War Story. W. W. Norton & Company, 2008.

MLA Citation (style guide)

Diane Ackerman. The Zookeeper's Wife: A War Story. W. W. Norton & Company, 2008.

Note! Citation formats are based on standards as of July 2022. Citations contain only title, author, edition, publisher, and year published. Citations should be used as a guideline and should be double checked for accuracy.
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Grouped Work ID:
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Needs Update?:
No
Date Added:
Jun 12, 2018 17:24:18
Date Updated:
Dec 08, 2020 17:40:23
Last Metadata Check:
Mar 24, 2024 14:23:22
Last Metadata Change:
Aug 21, 2023 19:27:03
Last Availability Check:
Mar 24, 2024 14:23:23
Last Availability Change:
Mar 24, 2024 12:36:18
Last Grouped Work Modification Time:
Mar 28, 2024 02:11:39

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fullDescription

The New York Times bestseller now a major motion picture starring Jessica Chastain.

A true story in which the keepers of the Warsaw Zoo saved hundreds of people from Nazi hands.

Jan and Antonina Zabinski were Polish Christian zookeepers horrified by Nazi racism, who managed to save over three hundred people. Yet their story has fallen between the seams of history. Drawing on Antonina's diary and other historical sources, best-selling naturalist Diane Ackerman vividly re-creates Antonina's life as "the zookeeper's wife," responsible for her own family, the zoo animals, and their "Guests"—Resistance activists and refugee Jews, many of whom Jan had smuggled from the Warsaw Ghetto. Ironically, the empty zoo cages helped to hide scores of doomed people, who were code-named after the animals whose names they occupied. Others hid in the nooks and crannies of the house itself.

Jan led a cell of saboteurs, and the Zabinskis' young son risked his life carrying food to the Guests, while also tending an eccentric array of creatures in the house. With hidden people having animal names, and pet animals having human names, it's small wonder the zoo's codename became "The House Under a Crazy Star."

Yet there is more to this story than a colorful cast. With her exquisite sensitivity to the natural world, Diane Ackerman explores the role of nature in both kindness and savagery, and she unravels the fascinating and disturbing obsession at the core of Nazism: both a worship of nature and its violation, as humans sought to control the genome of the entire planet.

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      • source: Washington Post Book World
      • content: A lovely story about the Holocaust might seem like a grotesque oxymoron. But in The Zookeeper's Wife, Diane Ackerman proves otherwise. Here is a true story... that is simultaneously grave and exuberant, wise and playful. Ackerman has a wonderful tale to tell, and she tells it wonderfully.
      • premium: False
      • source: Los Angeles Times
      • content: It is no stretch to say that this is the book Ackerman was meant to write.
      • premium: False
      • source: Jonathan Safran Foer
      • content: I can't imagine a better story or storyteller. The Zookeeper's Wife will touch every nerve you have.
      • premium: False
      • source: Jared Diamond
      • content: Diane Ackerman has surpassed even herself in her latest book, which is alternatingly funny, moving, and terrifying. This powerful thriller would be a great novel—except that it is true.
      • premium: True
      • source: Publisher's Weekly
      • content:

        Starred review from July 23, 2007
        Ackerman (A Natural History of the Senses
        ) tells the remarkable WWII story of Jan Zabinski, the director of the Warsaw Zoo, and his wife, Antonina, who, with courage and coolheaded ingenuity, sheltered 300 Jews as well as Polish resisters in their villa and in animal cages and sheds. Using Antonina's diaries, other contemporary sources and her own research in Poland, Ackerman takes us into the Warsaw ghetto and the 1943 Jewish uprising and also describes the Poles' revolt against the Nazi occupiers in 1944. She introduces us to such varied figures as Lutz Heck, the duplicitous head of the Berlin zoo; Rabbi Kalonymus Kalman Shapira, spiritual head of the ghetto; and the leaders of Zegota, the Polish organization that rescued Jews. Ackerman reveals other rescuers, like Dr. Mada Walter, who helped many Jews “pass,” giving “lessons on how to appear Aryan and not attract notice.” Ackerman's writing is viscerally evocative, as in her description of the effects of the German bombing of the zoo area: “...the sky broke open and whistling fire hurtled down, cages exploded, moats rained upward, iron bars squealed as they wrenched apart.” This suspenseful beautifully crafted story deserves a wide readership. 8 pages of illus.

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shortDescription

The New York Times bestseller now a major motion picture starring Jessica Chastain.

A true story in which the keepers of the Warsaw Zoo saved hundreds of people from Nazi hands.

Jan and Antonina Zabinski were Polish Christian zookeepers horrified by Nazi racism, who managed to save over three hundred people. Yet their story has fallen between the seams of history. Drawing on Antonina's diary and other historical sources, best-selling naturalist Diane Ackerman vividly re-creates Antonina's life as "the zookeeper's wife," responsible for her own family, the zoo animals, and their "Guests"—Resistance activists and refugee Jews, many of whom Jan had smuggled from the Warsaw Ghetto. Ironically, the empty zoo cages helped to hide scores of doomed people, who were code-named after the animals whose names they occupied. Others hid in the nooks and crannies of the house itself.

Jan led a cell of saboteurs, and the Zabinskis' young son...

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