| REEL FACE: | REAL FACE: |
Jessica Chastain
Born: March 24, 1977 Birthplace: Sacramento, California, USA | Antonina Zabinski
Born: 1908 Birthplace: Warsaw, Poland Death: 1971 |
Johan Heldenbergh
Born: May 11, 1967 Birthplace: Wilrijk, Flanders, Belgium | Jan Zabinski
Born: April 8, 1897 Birthplace: Warsaw, Poland Death: July 26, 1974, Warsaw, Poland |
Daniel Brühl
Born: June 16, 1978 Birthplace: Barcelona, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain | Lutz Heck
Born: April 23, 1892 Birthplace: Berlin, Germany Death: April 6, 1983, Berlin, Germany |
Efrat Dor
Born: January 6, 1983 Birthplace: Beersheba, Israel | Magdalena "Magda" Gross
Born: January 18, 1891 Birthplace: Warsaw, Poland Death: June 17, 1948, Warsaw, Poland |
Martha Issová
Born: March 22, 1981 Birthplace: Prague, Czechoslovakia | Regina Kenigswein
Birthplace: Warsaw, Poland |
Martin Hofmann
Born: March 31, 1978 Birthplace: Ceské Budejovice, Czechoslovakia | Szymon Tenenbaum
Death: November 1941, Warsaw Ghetto, Poland |
Prior to and during WWII, Antonina's husband Jan was the director and organizer of the Warsaw Zoo, one of the largest zoos in Europe at the time. He was a zoologist and zootechnician by trade, in addition to being a scientist and an author of books about biology and animal psychology. During the occupation of Poland he also held the title of superintendent of the city's public parks from 1939-1945. His job with the parks gave him the opportunity to enter the Warsaw Ghetto to inspect the flora there, while at the same time connecting with prewar Jewish friends and colleagues to help them escape.
The Zookeeper's Wife true story reveals that Antonina Zabinski was a teacher and respected author who published children's books about animals. She also had an affinity for the piano and painting. She assisted with the day-to-day operations at the zoo, including caring for the animals. During the occupation, she and their young son Ryszard fed and cared for the fleeing Jews who they had given shelter to at the zoo. Author Diane Ackerman drew in part from Antonina's diary for her book on which the movie is based.
Author Diane Ackerman based her book largely on Antonina Zabinski's diary (memoir), which Ackerman discovered during her initial research. Antonina's memoir was published in 1968 under the title Ludzie i zwierzęta (People and Animals). Diane Ackerman's Zookeeper's Wife book is filled with quotes from Atonina's diary and loose notes, in addition to quotes from the interviews and postwar testimony of others. There is currently no English language version of Antonina's diary, but Ackerman's book includes plenty.
Yes, Jan was a member of the resistance from the beginning. He acted as a biology teacher at an underground university. He used the zoo as a weapons depot and smuggled food into the Warsaw Ghetto and people out. After the war, Antonina learned that her husband Jan, a lieutenant in the resistance, was more deeply involved than she had realized, finding out that he was also sabotaging trains, building bombs, and poisoning the pork that was being sent to the German soldiers. For another engaging look at resistance fighters in WWII, check out our research into the movie Anthropoid. -WashingtonPost.com
Yes. The Nazi bombing of Warsaw in September 1939 left the zoo severely damaged and many of its cages emptied of animals. The Zookeeper's Wife true story confirms that the Zabinskis used the cages to hide fleeing Jews and partisans. They also hid them in the underground pathways connecting the animal cages. Jan and Antonina even welcomed close to a dozen Jews into their two-story home on the zoo's grounds, hiding them in rooms and closets. Regardless of the ever-present danger they were placing themselves in, Antonina was insistent on keeping a festive, music-filled atmosphere throughout their Bauhaus-style villa. It was a much needed distraction from the ongoing threat of the Nazis learning their secret, which would invariably lead to torture and death, not just for them but for their young son Ryszard as well. -WashingtonPost.com
Yes. According to Diane Ackerman's book, Lutz Heck first promised the Zabinskis he would protect what little remained of the Warsaw Zoo. However, in a moment of drunken revelry on New Year's Eve, he and his SS buddies murdered some of the animals for sport. In fathoming how Heck, a zookeeper himself, could kill these animals, it is believed that he did so in order to impress and win favor with the higher ranking Nazis. In her diary, Antonina commented, "How many humans will die like this in the coming months?" Other animals, including one of the Warsaw Zoo's main attractions, Tuzinka the elephant, were taken to German zoos, with the best and rarest animals taken for breeding purposes, including for Heck's plan to "resurrect" extinct purebred species. -WashingtonPost.com
They managed to help approximately 300 men, women and children, both partisans and Jews. Most were seeking refuge as they attempted to flee Nazi-occupied Warsaw and the German-Soviet occupation of Poland. Like in The Zookeeper's Wife movie, Jan personally smuggled some of them out of the Warsaw Ghetto himself and over to the Aryan side. He would provide them with papers, find accommodations for them, and if necessary, hide them on the grounds of the zoo or in his own personal villa with his family. To smuggle them into the zoo, he would hide them in barrels and cover them in garbage intended for the pigs.
His wife Antonina would help to protect them. In one instance, she attempted to dye a family's hair blond in order to hide their black hair that could reveal they were Jewish. However, their hair turned out brassy red, which led the family, the Kenigsweins, to be given the code name "Squirrels." -JTA.com
Yes. Antonina used musical code to communicate with her Jewish guests. She played "Go, Go to Crete!" to indicate that danger was close and to remain quiet, and another tune to let them know that the danger was gone. -JTA.org
Yes. The real Zookeeper's Wife, Antonina Zabinski, wrote about this moment in her diary. A German soldier barked an order at a 15-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!" As he took Ryszard behind the house, Antonina began to tremble with fear. Another shot rang out and the soldier returned with the two boys and a dead chicken. "We played a nice trick on you," the soldier said laughing.
They sheltered escaping Jews and partisans for roughly three years, offering help to approximately 300 people. They saved them from starvation in the Warsaw Ghetto and eventual deportation to Nazi death camps.
Yes. In August and September 1944, Jan Zabinski fought alongside fellow members of the Polish underground as part of the Home Army (Armia Krajowa) in the Warsaw Polish Uprising. 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. In 1968, the state of Israel honored both Antonina and Jan as "Righteous Amongst the Nations." -TheBlaze.com
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." -YadVashem.org
His wife Antonina, portrayed by Jessica Chastain in the movie, was very much the opposite. 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. "I looked at them with despair; their appearance and the way they spoke left no illusions. … I felt an overwhelming sense of shame for my own helplessness and fear." -Polscy Sprawiedliwi
Learn more about The Zookeeper's Wife true story by watching the documentaries below. The videos are filled with footage and images chronicling the German invasion of Poland, the creation of the Warsaw Ghetto, the role the Warsaw Zoo played, and the ghetto uprising.