Jan joined the nascent Polish Army in and took part in the Polish—Soviet War of , for which he was awarded his first Cross of Valour. He was the co-founder of the Warsaw Zoo, and served as its director for a decade from until the German invasion of Poland in He also taught geography at the private Kreczmar Secondary pl.
After the liberation of Poland in , he soon resumed his position of the Warsaw Zoo director, and served there until March His wife Antonina was also awarded the Commander's Cross. Newsletter email address Get it By signing up, you agree to the terms. View comments Hide comments. Stay updated.
A wide variety of animals actually resided at the villa: lynxes, cockatoos, a hamster, an arctic hare, a piglet, a badger, a muskrat and many more. T he director of the zoo used to say:. They provided a safe hiding place for many people as well as secretly storing weapons and ammunition in empty cages and abandoned pavilions. Over the course of the war many Jews found shelter at the zoo. Jan, a lieutenant in the Home Army, supported his family during the first years of the war by delivering lectures and tutorials in underground schools.
In he fought in the Warsaw Uprising and was taken to a prison camp in Germany. Jan often provided false documents to those in need and he also helped to locate safe hideouts. In the hours of daylight, Samuel used to sneak into the aviary, and wait until the evening, wrapped in a fur coat with the door locked from the outside. Regina and the children cautiously climbed upstairs from the basement.
Such an artist, handling pots and pans? Who would have thought that such a petite person will not manage? She played "Go, Go to Crete! Yes, in order to hide their Jewish names, Antonina gave her guests animal names. For example, the Zabinskis' friend and sculptor Magdalena Gross was given the name "Starling" because according to Diane Ackerman's book, Antonina "pictured her 'flying from nest to nest' to avoid capture.
The real Zookeeper's Wife, Antonina Zabinski, wrote about this moment in her diary. A German soldier barked an order at a year-old assistant at the zoo and disappeared with him behind the house. A shot was heard and the soldier re-emerged and yelled at Antonina's son Ryszard, "You're next! Another shot rang out and the soldier returned with the two boys and a dead chicken.
They sheltered escaping Jews and partisans for roughly three years, offering help to approximately people. They saved them from starvation in the Warsaw Ghetto and eventual deportation to Nazi death camps. During its suppression, Zabinski was captured and taken to Germany as a prisoner. His wife Antonina and son Ryszard whose name means lynx in Polish continued the efforts to give shelter to and care for the hidden Jews.
Like in The Zookeeper's Wife movie, Jan survived the Nazi prison camp and eventually reunited with his family. Child actor Val Maloku portrays Ryszard as a boy in the movie. Amazingly, the true story reveals that all but two of the approximately people who found refuge at the zoo survived the war. Jan was a natural risk-taker who was raised around Jews and knew many. He was courageous and able to keep his cool.
Regarding his motives, he wrote, "I do not belong to any party, and no party program was my guide during the occupation My deeds were and are a consequence of a certain psychological composition, a result of a progressive-humanistic upbringing, which I received at home as well as in Kreczmar High School. Many times I wished to analyze the causes for dislike for Jews and I could not find any, besides artificially formed ones.
She was high strung and often fearful, in part because her parents had been killed by the Bolsheviks and she knew the realities of political violence all too well. In The Zookeeper's Wife book, author Diane Ackerman reasons that Antonina's love for animals and her ability to see all life as precious led to her wanting to do whatever she could to help save lives. Despite her fears, she could not turn her back on suffering.
This is emphasized later when she recalled the evening when the Kenigswein family showed up at the zoo looking for help.
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