ipl-logo

The Zookeeper's Wife By Diane Ackerman Sparknotes

1636 Words7 Pages

Analysis of: The Zookeeper’s Wife: A War Story
“I don't understand all the fuss. If any creature is in danger, you save it, human or animal” (Ackerman 113). Compassion is a major theme in the book, The Zookeeper’s Wife:A War Story written by Diane Ackerman and published in 2007. The book tells the true story of a polish couple in WWII who owned a zoo and hid over 300 Jewish people inside their empty cages, closets, and even in their basement. This book is intriguing, has well-developed characters, and informs the reader on how much compassion the Żabiński’s truly had for their friends and community in spite of their religious differences.
Jan and Antonina Żabiński were very kind people with an affinity towards both animals and humans. They …show more content…

Realizing they wanted to do more to help, they decided they could help the Jews and hide them inside the animal cages. Jan and Antonina began sneaking some of the Jews from the Warsaw ghetto, hiding them as guests or relatives or even inside the empty cages. Most people did not want to help the Jews because if they got caught the crime was punishable by death. Antonina would make them feel as comfortable as she could, entertaining them and caring for them. Later, Jan talks to his friend who has access to the inside of the ghetto and begins going in and smuggling Jews out. The guests would be named animal names while the animals would have human names, in case someone unexpectedly showed up. The housekeeper would complain that she didn't know how the family could eat so much food. For the Jewish people hiding with the Żabiński’s they were terrified of every strange noise, whether it was a picture falling off the wall or a clock ticking, for if they were caught it might bring them …show more content…

This fascinating tale of a couple and their lives during WWII, keeps the reader wanting more. With the combination of the story and words from Antonina’s diary, this makes the reader get inside the head of the main character, the reader almost knows what she is going to do next. WWII cost over 72 million lives worldwide, making it one of the most important wars in history. The family saving Jews is just one aspect, with the uniqueness of the family also owning a zoo, separates this story from any other WWII story. Jan and Antonina story shows us that even in the most evil time, there is always good. They were living in a time of death and hatred, but they did their best to save as many lives as they possibly could. This captivating theme makes for a book that the reader does not want to put down. Another major theme in this book, compassion, is what makes the story a

Show More
Related
156 Words | 1 Pages

holocaust. The main characters are two Jewish girls, Zlatka and Fania. They both live in ghettos, until their lives drastically change. They are both sent in cargo trains to one of the biggest death camps, Auschwitz.

Read More
559 Words | 3 Pages

The introduction to Irene Gut Opdyke’s experiences before and during World War II left me speechless. It seems impossible to me that she experienced so much pain and suffering in a few short years. The observations, emotions, and reactions to Irene’s marvelous writing in part one of In My Hands have already begun to change how I view kindness and sacrifice. In My Hands begins with Irene’s harrowing tale of her curiosity almost leading to her drowning in the river near her house.

Read More
716 Words | 3 Pages

What does a girl ripped from her home and placed into seclusion and a boy seperated from most of his family and faced with death every day have in common? The answer lies not with their experiences, but within the emotional effects of the aftermath of their traumatic experiences. Jeanne Houston writes about her life in a Japanese-American in her autobiography Farewell to Manzanar, and Elie Wiesel shares his story of the Jewish concentration camps in his autobiography Night. Both of these intimate books reveal truly horrific events and details about the crimes against humanity that went on during WWII, although one author clearly had experienced more appalling episodes. While both Jeannie and Elie suffered heavily and lost family connections

Read More
1021 Words | 5 Pages

Yellow Star is a 2006 biographical children 's novel by Jennifer Roy. Written in free verse, it describes life through the eyes of a young Jewish girl whose family was forced into the Łódź Ghetto in 1939 during World War II. Roy tells the story of her aunt Sylvia, who shared her childhood memories with Roy more than 50 years after the ghetto 's liberation. Roy added fictionalized dialogue, but did not alter the story. The book covers Sylvia 's life as she grows from four and a half to ten years old in the ghetto.

Read More
1688 Words | 7 Pages

The Holocaust is a standout amongst the most terrible and grisly occasions of the twentieth century. More than six million Jews and different minorities were beaten, hanged, gassed, and consumed in inhumane imprisonments and on THE STREETS all through Europe under the bearing of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party. Workmanship Spiegelman's powerful books, Maus I - My Father Bleeds History and Maus II - And Here My Troubles Began, mirror the story of his folks, told by his dad, surviving the hopelessness of the holocaust through words, as well as with shocking pictures also. Spiegelman catches the perusers consideration, brain, and soul with his record of the unnerving outcomes of being Jewish in Poland amid World War II. Maus I starts with

Read More
2060 Words | 9 Pages

Antonina says that she wants to move to a country with no military interests. Then she goes further and says that it is basically impossible for that to happen. Then Jan comes to bring them back home to spend some time with him before he is sent to fight in the front. They see that the zoo had

Read More
441 Words | 2 Pages

The film Hidden in Silence is based on a true story. During WWII, while Jews are sent to ghettos, Catholic teenager Stefania Podgorska (called Fusia in the movie) helps 13 Jews to save their life while raising her little sister. The film is not very explicit in the violence against the Jews; instead, it conveys a message of hope for mankind, despite the horror humanity shows itself in sensitive ways throughout the film. During the Holocaust, Fusia protects thirteen Jews men, women, and children in the attic of her home for more than two years. Every day, she risks execution by given food and water to the silent friends and neighbors living above her.

Read More
1767 Words | 8 Pages

What would you do if you were snatched from your home, forced to get on a train, and deposited at a place of unhappiness, of torture, of death? If was not a question for the millions of Jews and others that were taken to concentration camps and exposed to their worst nightmares during the separate occurrences of the Holocaust and Invasion of Lithuania. One of these such Jews is Zlatka from Paper Hearts by Meg Wiviott, who is sent to Auschwitz, a large concentration camp, and has to survive without her family. The only thing that keeps her going are the friends she finds in fellow concentration camp inmates. In a parallel situation, 15-year-old Lina Vilkas from Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys lives during Stalin’s Invasion of Lithuania.

Read More
458 Words | 2 Pages

Hana Brady was a young girl who lived in Nove Mesto with her older brother, George, her mother, Marketa, and her father, Karel (Levine 5-6). Hana Brady was thirteen when experienced some of the horrible things Jews were being put through. (“Hana”). Although the Holocaust killed and harmed many people, there are stories like Hana Brady’s who will inspire people today, even though her life ended at a concentration camp.

Read More
1196 Words | 5 Pages

Despite the brave front that Vladek has put in the years following the war, his story remains to be a tale of suffering, agony, and death. The story of Vladek’s survival during the Holocaust is the central aspect of the novel,

Read More
787 Words | 4 Pages

Siege 13 explains many ideas in interesting and captivating ways. It does this by telling 13 linked stories that relate to the Red Army’s siege on Budapest. These take place all over the world and during the past and the present. It shows a butterfly effect left by the siege and the events that it affected. The Restoration of the Villa Where Tibor Kalman Once Lived and The Animals of the Budapest Zoo, 1944-45 display many themes of war, and extremes people will go to, to achieve what they want during this time of despair.

Read More
640 Words | 3 Pages

“It was a beautiful August sunny afternoon, I was sitting outside with my father near the cellar entrance; the only thing I can recall from that day was the arms that rounded my neck and the beautiful specks of trees reflected by the dazzling sunlight,” said Helen Segall, former Chair of the Russian Department at Dickinson College. Segall returned to campus on Tuesday March 24 to talk about her new memoir, When the Lilacs Bloom, which details her experiences as a childhood Holocaust survivor. During the talk in Althouse, Segall opened her speech with this description of such a warm and relaxing afternoon in order to highlight the contrast to the genocide that killed almost six million Jewish people. “I was born in a town called Dubno in Poland,

Read More
780 Words | 4 Pages

The 2002 film entitled “The Pianist” tells the story of Szpilman, a Polish Jewish pianist, and his experience in the Warsaw Ghetto during World War II. At the start of the movie, Szpilman is healthy, caring, and a faithful Jewish man, but as the war worsens, a change is seen within him. In order to survive the brutal destruction this ghetto faced during the Holocaust, Szpilman found himself constantly trapped within the walls of empty flats, abandoned attics, and wrecked houses. Although Szpilman was fortunate enough to survive this inhumane uprising, he still suffered from physical, mental, and spiritual damage.

Read More
1640 Words | 7 Pages

When someone is alive people do not see the value of life and how precious it is, they do not realize it until it is too late. Many people would not notice such a small moment like this in their lives and would take it for granted. However, the characters seen in the novel treasure every moment similar to how they treasure life. They are able to see the value of life and how each person 's struggles has helped them heal. People are able to see that the obstacles an individual faces, which leads them to survival.

Read More
1102 Words | 5 Pages

Setting In the novel The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah, the cities of Carriveau and Paris are transformed from peaceful locations into bloody war zones after the Germans invaded France. Setting is used to emphasize the destructive impact the Nazis had in France during its occupation in World War II. During the middle of the Nazi’s conquest over France, it is noted that, “These days, Paris was a woman screaming. Noise, noise, noise.

Read More

More about The Zookeeper's Wife By Diane Ackerman Sparknotes

Related Topics

Open Document