The Zookeeper's Wife

Ackerman draws on Antonina's own diaries and memoir, interviews and many other sources to recreate daily life at the zoo before and during the war. Before the invasion, the Żabińskis' villa was a lively, unusual home filled with animals of all kinds, from badgers to a lynx. The German bombing and occupation destroyed much of this world, and the Berlin zoo director, Lutz Heck, arrived to take prized animals for his breeding experiments, which Ackerman connects to the wider obsessions of Nazi ideology.

Jan, an active member of the Polish underground, used the zoo's new official functions, first as a pig farm and later a fur farm, as cover for moving people in and out. Antonina kept the household running, cared for her young son and the remaining animals, and treated the hidden guests as family, using a particular piece of music played on the piano as a signal of danger. The book follows them through years of risk to the Warsaw Uprising of 1944. Ackerman writes about cruelty without dwelling on it and lingers instead on courage, ingenuity and small kindnesses.

Lyrical, detailed and moving. About 384 pages in the Norton paperback, with notes and photographs.