Lutz Heck, the highest-ranking zoologist in Hitler’s regime visited the Warsaw Zoo often, even offering help as supplies dwindled in the war torn area. But Nazis had an obsession with rare species. Zoology and Nazism may seem an odd literary pairing. With the help of their young son Rys and many groundskeepers, these animals roamed, well fed and watered-until 1939, that is-through eclectic habitats and artesian wells that surrounded the central villa. Husband and wife Jan and Antonia Zabinski, two Catholic Poles, ran the Warsaw Zoo, a prized cultural institution home to a bustling community of exotic and local animals. It is this Warsaw that poet, naturalist, and science writer Diane Ackerman explores in her lusciously written new book T he Zookeeper’s Wife. “Kill without pity or mercy,” he ordered his troops, “all men, women, and children of Polish descent or language… Only in this way can we obtain the Lebensraum we need.” Nordic-looking children, however, would be renamed and raised by Germans. But as the Germans methodically claimed Polish towns over the months, he grew bolder. His initial plan was simple: drive ethnic Poles east, condense Jews into a reservation plot, and claim a pure Aryan Lebensraum (“living space”).
Hours earlier, Adolf Hitler had staged a fake attack on the German border town of Gleiwitz to justify invading Poland, dressing SS troops in Polish uniforms who then issued a counterfeit call to arms. But this morning, running Polish soldiers took the place of would-be backpack-laden youngsters. It was to be the first day of school for Polish school children. On September 1, 1939, Warsaw’s inhabitants awoke to the grumblings of approaching Luftwaffe bomber squadrons.
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