Book Report On The Zookeeper's Wife By Diane Ackerman

There were so many heroes during World War two from soldiers to people who hid Jews, and there is probably no one way to tell them all, yet they most definitely should be. In the true war story, The Zookeeper’s Wife, by Diane Ackerman, Jan and Antonia Zabinski a married couple, who were Zookeeper’s at the zoo in Warsaw before and during World War two, save the lives of hundreds of Jews. They were able to do this in a number of different ways including hiding them in the animal cages at the zoo and at the family’s villa. They also worked with the Underground, which was a polish resistance against the German invaders that operated in the underground railway system beneath Warsaw, who helped the Zabinski move Jews from the zoo to safer homes.

The art of keeping secrets is a difficult one and is one that many people during World War two had to learn in order to survive. Antonia had to keep a lot of secrets for Jan but, “Amazingly, Antonia never twigged one of Jan’s secrets: that with his help the Home Army an ammunitions dump at the zoo, buried near the moat in the elephant enclosure” (Ackerman 113). This is proof than Antonia never told any of the secrets of Jan’s activity with the Underground and also an example of the extreme nature of the secrets she had to keep. Antonia could have given away so many different types of information that would have led to the discovery of either Jews or the Undergrounds operations. It was an unbelievable burden for anyone to bare, with her own, Jan’s, and the Underground’s secrets all weighing down on her. If this was all Antonia had done in the efforts towards saving Jews she still would have been a hero. This not only reveals her courage but it also reveals her fortitude, and her ability to think about what she is going to say in stressful circumstances. In so many different situations Antonia could have faltered and altered the course of so many lives yet she never