Book Review for Zookeeper's Wife
The Zookeeper’s Wife is a war story about Polish zookeepers Antonia and Jan Zabinski. Antonia and Jan saved over three hundred Jews after their zoo was bombed by the Nazis. The Warsaw Zoo was bombed on New Year’s Eve 1939. When the animals died from the bombing, the Zabinski’s hid the Jews in abandoned animal cages because they had open space.
They worked as a team. Jan was a lieutenant in the Polish Army as well as a professor in a secret/private university in Warsaw. He would find Jews in the areas with poverty and guide them to the zoo for protection. While back at the zoo, Antonia would maintain the zoo as well as help the Jews survive everyday as well as giving them as much protection as possible. I would definitely recommend this book to other people especially if they are interested in events regarding the war.
It is also a very unique book; it is different from anything I have ever read before. I loved the overall plot of the book. Overall, the book had a very special plot. The book has a different perspective about the Nazi’s and their invasion in World War II. The two main characters Jan and Antonia were perfect for the novel because when Jan left to continue his part in the resistance he was still able to guide the Jews to Antonia, who would care for them. The two roles complemented each other nicely.
The writing style if this was not too hard to read either. It was all in the same dialect and the language was not too difficult to figure out. Some issues addressed in the book were the problems with the Nazi’s and how much power they had during WWII. This book is nonfiction and contains lots of facts so I would not recommend it to people who do not enjoy detail after detail. The book’s theme and concerns are not necessarily relevant to the world today because obviously the war is not still going on.
There are some similar current themes doing the right thing no matter what the risk is behind it. Antonia hid these Jews in her zoo. She knew she was doing the right thing but if she got caught. She would most likely been killed. She is taking her own life and putting it out there in front of other people.
