The Zookeeper's Wife: A War Story by Diane Ackerman

April's mid-week meeting was held at Diana's home.  We were all treated to a staple part of the local culinary heritage of many Eastern and Central European nations including Poland, the setting of our book: Borscht.  I must admit that I have wanted to try borscht for some time now since reading a magazine article in which this red soup was so positively shared.  I was not disappointed!  It is a most pleasant tasting soup with beets, cabbage, potatoes, red wine vinegar, tomatoes and chicken.  Healthy, delicious, and apt to be recreated in my own kitchen sometime soon. Along with the borscht, we enjoyed deviled eggs, multi-grain bread, fresh fruit and chocolate dessert.  We also delighted in Diana's creative inclusion of the book title through her decorated lunch table -- animal cookies scattered around the tablecloth!

Synopsis:
Antonina Zabinski and her husband, Jan, are the zookeepers for the Warsaw Zoo when Germany invades their country and city in 1939.  Despite the loss of their beloved animals, the Zabinskis continue to protect what they can while living at their villa inside the zoo, which includes not only a handful of animals but many Jews.  Through Jan's work with the Underground, the zookeeper and his wife manage to save over 300 lives during World War II, including their own.

Comments:
As a whole we agreed that this story gave a different, or perhaps more indepth look, at the strength and organization of the Polish Resistance.  By the author's account, it would appear that much more of Warsaw fought against the Germans and their evil schemes to rid the world of the Jewish race than we had previously thought.

However, we were all disappointed with the style of writing.  Ms. Ackerman includes a large amount of facts, some fascinating, some irrelevant, and some discussed with numerous, mind-numbing details.  The pages where the author describes the entomologist's collection of insects was akin to the Chinese water torture!  With the inclusion of so many facts, we found the storyline lost or characters pushed aside and the timeline compromised in order for the author to completely immerse us in one "interesting sidenote" which sometimes possessed only a thin thread of connection to the main storyline. 

 Although most likely a result of the culture of that time period and his own father's attitude, Rys was depicted as a youthful male chauvinist.  It was infuriating to hear him make such disparaging remarks in regards to women, especially when he was referring to his own mother.  Antonina was a remarkable woman whom we found fascinating as she was a protective and loving mother to both humans and animals.  She was courageous, resourceful, and strong.  She was also very insightful in her observations of humans taken from the animal kingdom: "Antonina wondered if humans might use the same metaphor and picture the war days as 'a sort of hibernation of the spirit, when ideas, knowledge, science, enthusiasm for work, understanding, and love--all accumulate inside, [where] nobody can take them from us.'" and "Why was it, she asked herself, that 'animals can sometimes subdue their predatory ways in only a few months, while humans, despite centuries of refinement, can quickly grow more savage than any beast'?" 

Heinz Heck, a German zoologist, provided an interesting dichotomy as a lover of animals in the form of both hunter and preserver of them.  While he and his brother worked hard on the back-breeding project intended to bring back extinct species, he also arranged a private hunting party with his SS friends right on the zoo grounds, a killing spree of caged exotic animals.  This man aligned himself with the Third Reich, justifying sterilization, euthanasia, and mass murder, and yet, Heck made the following statement on page 82: "the thought that if man cannot be halted in his mad destruction of himself and other creatures, it is at least a consolation if some of those kinds of animals he has already exterminated can be brought back to life again."  Heinz was a man of many contradictions!

Most Memorable Quote:
"The Poles claim Korczak as a martyr, and the Israelis revere him as one of the Thirty-Six Just Men, whose pure souls make possible the world's salvation.  According to Jewish legend, these few, through their good hearts and good deeds, keep the too-wicked world from being destroyed.  For their sake alone, all of humanity is spared.  The legend tells that they are ordinary people, not flawless or magical, and that most of them remain unrecognized throughout their lives, while they choose to perpetuate goodness, even in the midst of inferno." page 186.

FAB Rating:
*** (3 out of 5 stars)
Despite our frustration with the large amount of detailed facts and lack of continual storyline and characters, we agreed that this story of remarkable courage found in the unremarkable citizens of Warsaw should be told. Perhaps, as one FAB gal suggested, the story would have found a more comfortable home in the "based on a true story" genre where the author could have written it in a more free-flowing style without having to continually make note of whether Jan wrote this in his notes or Antonina wrote that in her diary.