Many are killed or “transported” to the concentration camps. She and her family and friends are eyewitnesses unable to escape the terror of the German invasion of Poland in 1939. As new,first edition, first printing, in fine, mylar-protected dust jacket.Not remainder-mared or price-clipped} BUND.Diane Ackerman writes about terrifying experiences, in Poland during World War II, that are not too terrible to be put into words.Īntonina is the zookeeper’s wife in Warsaw. She shows us how Antonina refused to give in to the penetrating fear of discovery, keeping alive an atmosphere of play and innocence even as Europe crumbled around her. Meanwhile, Antonina kept her unusual household afloat, caring for both its human and its animal inhabitants?otters, a badger, hyena pups, lynxes.With her exuberant prose and exquisite sensitivity to the natural world, Diane Ackerman engages us viscerally in the lives of the zoo animals, their keepers, and their hidden visitors. Jan, active in the Polish resistance, kept ammunition buried in the elephant enclosure and stashed explosives in the animal hospital. Another dozen "guests" hid inside the Zabinskis' villa, emerging after dark for dinner, socializing, and, during rare moments of calm, piano concerts. With most of their animals dead, zookeepers Jan and Antonina Zabinski began smuggling Jews into empty cages. When Germany invaded Poland, Stuka bombers devastated Warsaw?and the city's zoo along with it. A true story in which the keepers of the Warsaw Zoo saved hundreds of people from Nazi hands. THERE IS A BLACK "CLOSEOUT/REMAINDER" MARK ON THE BOTTOM PAGE EDGES. With her exquisite sensitivity to the natural world, 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. With hidden people having animal names, and pet animals having human names, it is small wonder the zoo's code name became "The House Under a Crazy Star." Yet there is more to this story than a colorful cast. 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 (pigs, hare, muskrat, foxes, and more). Others hid in the nooks and crannies of the house itself. Ironically, the empty zoo cages helped to hide scores of doomed people, who were code-named after the animals whose cages they occupied. 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. Yet their story has fallen betwen the seams of history. Jan and Antonina Zabinski were Polish Christian zookeepers horrified by Nazi racism, who managed to save over three hundred people. When Germany invaded Poland, Stuka bombers devastated Warsaw - and the city's zoo along with it. CONTENTS: The true story of how the keepers of the Warsaw Zoo saved hundreds of people from Nazi hands. Meanwhile, Antonina kept her unusual household afloat, caring for both its human and its animal inhabitants-otters, a badger, hyena pups, lynxes-and keeping alive an atmosphere of play and innocence even as Europe crumbled around her. When Germany invaded Poland, Stuka bombers devastated Warsaw-and the city's zoo along with it. The true story of how the keepers of the Warsaw Zoo saved hundreds of people from Nazi hands. Norton, 2007, stated First Edition with 1st printing number line, 368pp., very good dust-jacket, light wear along top and bottom edges, cover price $24.95, very good black and light green hardcover, a few page edges slightly bumped.
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