The Zookeeper's Wife: A War Story by Ackerman Diane

Author:Ackerman, Diane [Ackerman, Diane]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Norton
Published: 2007-09-04T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 20

THE SNOWY AUTUMN OF 1942 HIT THE ZOO WITH A SPECIAL fury, as winds lashed wooden buildings until they moaned and whisked snowbanks into sparkling souffles. Bombing early in the war ripped up the zoo grounds, scrambling its landmarks, then snow fell heavily, hiding a bevy of new ruts, downed fences, twisted macadam, jagged fingers of metal. Below the deceptively soft snowscape, metal basilisks lurked everywhere, confining people to a maze of shoveled walks and well-trodden pastures.

Antonina's range shrank even more because she was crippled by what sounds like phlebitis (she offers few clues), a painful infection in the leg veins that made walking agonizing and meant bed rest from fall of 1942 to spring of 1943. An unusually active thirty-four-year-old, she hated being confined to her bedroom, in heavy clothes, muffled under strata of blankets and comforters ("I felt so embarrassed and useless," she moaned in ink), when there was a large household to manage. She was the top matryoshka, after all, and not just symbolically, since she was also pregnant. It's hard to know if blood clots did form in her legs—from pregnancy, smoking, varicose veins, heredity? Certainly not inactivity or obesity. But phlebitis can be dangerous; in its severest form, deep vein thrombosis, a blood clot travels to the heart or lungs, causing death. Even mild phlebitis, or possibly rheumatoid arthritis (an inflammation of the joints), creates red swollen legs and requires bed rest, so, having no alternative, she held court in her bedroom, with family, friends, and staff alike paying calls.

In June of 1942, the Polish Underground received a letter, written in code, telling of an extermination camp at Treblinka, a town not far from Warsaw. Here's part of its warning:

Uncle is planning (God preserve us) to hold a wedding for his children at your place, too (God forbid). . ..[H]e's rented a place for himself near you, really close to you, and you probably don't know a thing about it, that's why I'm writing to you and I'm sending a special messenger with this letter, so that you'll be informed about it. It's true and you must rent new places outside the town for yourselves and for all our brothers and sons of Israel. . .. We know for sure uncle has got this place almost ready for you. You must know about it, you must find some way out. . .. Uncle is planning to hold this wedding as soon as possible. . .. Go into hiding. . .. Remember—we are holy sacrifices, "and if some is left till morning. . ."

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