The Zookeeper's Wife: A War Story by Diane Ackerman Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of The Zookeeper's Wife: A War Story
Book Review: A wonderful story
Summary: 5 Stars
I feel The Zookeepers Wife was a wonderful look into another side of The Holocost. Truly an inspiration.
Book Review: Zookeeper's Wife
Summary: 3 Stars
It was an excellent historical depiction of the problems in Poland during the World War II invasion. I thought that it had enough information to fill a couple of volumes. Very good book for animal lovers. Not enough personal viewpoints given and no spiritual connections at all, that I could detect. A book worth reading.Book Review: Meaningful story that could've been better!
Summary: 2 Stars
I was excited to begin this book since it conveyed a unique perspective on the events of WWII in Poland. I was disappointed right away, however, since much of the story was lost in the details. The author would often jump from one topic to another within the span of a chapter or often even a page. This made the chain of events difficult to follow, and it took the focus from the amazing families that risked so much during the war.Book Review: The poignancy of the story is emotionally overwhelming; a great and meaningful read.
Summary: 5 Stars
The Zookeeper's Wife, by Diane Ackerman (W.W. Norton & Co., Inc. 2007)
This is the story of a zookeeper and his wife living in Warsaw before World War II. They operated the Warsaw Zoo and lived on the grounds in central Warsaw. The story is based on the diary of the wife Antonina, as well as interviews and other historical materials.
It begins with vivid description of the bucolic life in the zoo, its animals, their sounds, and the details of the operation. The love of the zookeepers family for the animals is touching at this point in the story. The wife nurses all manner of animals, exotic and pedestrian, to health, becoming important elements of the zoo life. The birth of elephants (the twelfth in captivity), lynxes, rhinos, Przywalski horses, big cats, and so on paints the picture of loving, caring people whose life centers around protecting and preserving the creatures of nature.
When the Nazis arrived, zoo officials from Berlin carted off the most exotic animals and dispersed most of the others to German zoos after a private hunt on the zoo grounds. The wife had a premonition that this brutality was what was in store for Warsaw. Bombing of Warsaw then destroyed much of what remained. The Nazi official responsible for the Berlin Zoo was determined to re-create extinct species, such as the legendary bull aurochs, even has his cohorts were exterminating human beings. Ancient animals were venerated to saintly status, as noble people were ground under foot.
The zookeeper became active in the underground , as his wife devised intricate strategies to shelter Jews as they were able to extricated from the Warsaw ghetto across the river. Amazingly, this process worked throughout the war.
The poignancy of the story is emotionally overwhelming. The non-Jewish zookeeper and his family (wife and son) put their lives on the line on a daily basis for the Jews in a far more dangerous and devoted manner that their life of caring for the animals of the zoo. They nurtured friendship and community with those passing through their hands.
The son is raised in those years loving animals that Germans would shoot for sport or eat. He lived in a largely self-imposed shelter of his own out of fear that he would breath a word that would result in a Nazi reprisal to his family and all whom they protected.
The reader is drawn into this life. Ackerman tells this story with simple humility, without directly examining the emotions of the characters that she brings to life, as the zookeepers did their four and two-legged wards. As readers, we are left to ponder their emotions. How would each of us react under such circumstances? If we were the zookeeper, risking the lives of his family and fighting with the underground? Or the wife, who respected her husband's mission and did her best to care for each new inhabitant of the zoo. Or the young son who wanted to fight with the underground, but understood that he would put his family and their wards at risk with even the slightest wayward word. Or the Jews who found respite in the zoo grounds. Or the Nazi soldiers who were ordered to murder these innocent people and animals.
This is a wonderful story, written with just a light touch to allow all of these emotions to rise to the surface for each of us to find our own truths in the lives of heroes under stress.
A great and meaningful read.
Book Review: Magnificant Story but not magnificantly written
Summary: 3 Stars
For me personally, the flowerly poetic words and the authors tendency to wander and focus on the unimportant,with WAY too many details, all combined to make reading this book more of a chore than a pleasure. The story is true. The characters real. The impact of life in Warsaw during World War 11 and how these heroic people survived was well worth reading. The subject matter and the sheer reality of the story over powered the authors shortcomings.