Summary and Analysis of the Zookeeper's Wife by Worth Books

Author:Worth Books
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Worth Books
Published: 2017-03-27T15:29:54+00:00

Timeline

Summer 1935: Jan and Antonina run the elaborate, bustling Warsaw Zoo. They live in the zoo villa with their infant son, Ryś, and an ever-changing company of animal friends.

Fall 1938: Germany seizes Sudetenland, a part of Czechoslovakia populated mostly by Germans; though France and England acquiesce, Poland fears that Germany will invade the Polish borderlands next.

Summer 1939: The threat of German invasion looms over Poland. Antonina and Ryś escape the political tensions in Warsaw with a vacation in Rejentówka, a small town in the countryside.

Fall 1939: Germany invades Poland. German aircraft bomb the city, wrecking the zoo. Jan leaves to find a Home Army unit to join while Antonina and Ryś take refuge at the house of Jan’s sister. In October, Warsaw surrenders. Hitler installs a German government, which begins enacting racist laws.

Winter 1939–1940: Jan forges ties with the Polish Underground. Lutz Heck visits the Warsaw Zoo and steals the valuable animals that survived the bombardment; he and the SS shoot the animals he doesn’t want.

Spring 1940: Jan and Antonina begin to operate a pig farm on the zoo grounds.

Summer 1940: The Nazis enact racist laws, segregating Jews, and persecuting both Jews and Poles at will.

Fall 1940: The Nazis force Warsaw’s Jewish population into the Ghetto. The Żabińskis begin to welcome fugitive Jews into the zoo, hiding them in their villa and sometimes in empty animal enclosures.

Winter 1940–1941: A corrupt bureaucrat shuts down the pig farm. With the help of Warsaw’s German president of Warsaw, the zoo is saved and Jan heads a community garden on zoo grounds.

Spring–Summer 1941: The Żabińskis continue to hide fugitives at the zoo. Some of the refugees are spirited out of the Ghetto by Jan himself; others arrive at the villa through contacts within the Underground.

Winter 1941–1942: Jan is assigned to a buildings hygiene inspector job. His legal access to all quarters of the city is an invaluable boon to the Underground.

Spring 1942: Magdalena Gross arrives at the villa and lives there as a Guest.

Summer 1942: The Germans deport thousands of Jews out of the Ghetto to concentration camps.

Fall 1942: Zegota forms to rescue Jews from the Ghetto. The Germans create a fur farm on the zoo grounds.

Winter 1942–1943: Antonina is bedridden with painful, swollen legs. She is also pregnant.

Spring 1943: The Germans begin the final liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto. After months of fighting and thousands of Jewish lives lost, the Ghetto is destroyed. Maurycy Fraenkel flees the Ghetto and moves into the villa. Antonina gives birth to a baby girl, Teresa, in June.

Winter 1943–1944: The German occupation government offers Jan the chance to revive the Warsaw Zoo, but he refuses.

Summer 1944: The German population of occupied Poland flees the approaching Russian Red Army. The Guests leave the villa and Warsaw for other safe houses. In August, the Warsaw Uprising begins. Jan fights while Antonina and Ryś remain in the villa.

Fall 1944: The Germans crush the Uprising and level much of Warsaw. Antonina and Ryś flee to the countryside and find shelter in a schoolhouse.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.