Daniel Brühl (right) portrays Heck in the film.ĭid Antonina's husband turn the zoo into a pig farm in order to keep it running and maintain it as an integral part of the resistance? Like in the movie, the real Lutz Heck (left) shot animals at the zoo in order to impress his SS friends. In The Zookeeper's Wife book, Diane Ackerman writes that the men at the meetings were impressed by Antonina's "smarts and willowy looks," including Heck who was "sweet on Antonina." She goes on to say that Antonina wondered if Heck wanted to help them so that she would see him as her medieval knight coming to protect her, a romantic gesture to "win her heart and prove his nobility." Antonina had heard from a mutual friend that she had reminded Heck of the first woman he truly loved.ĭid Nazi Lutz Heck and his SS friends really kill animals at the Warsaw Zoo for fun? They had regularly seen Heck at annual meetings of the International Association of Zoo Directors. In real life, Heck, a fellow zoologist, had been a former colleague of Antonina's husband Jan. In The Zookeeper's Wife movie, Nazi Lutz Heck (Daniel Brühl) protects the couple in part because he has a crush on Antonina (Jessica Chastain). Bottom: The villa as depicted in The Zookeeper's Wife movie.ĭid German Lutz Heck really have a crush on Antonina? Top: The real Villa that the Zabinskis called home on the grounds of the Warsaw Zoo. There is currently no English language version of Antonina's diary, but Ackerman's book includes plenty. 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. Antonina's memoir was published in 1968 under the title Ludzie i zwierzęta ( People and Animals). Īuthor Diane Ackerman based her book largely on Antonina Zabinski's diary (memoir), which Ackerman discovered during her initial research. Together, Antonina and Jan leaned more toward a Bohemian lifestyle, often surrounding themselves with artists and intellectuals. Taking after his father, Jan frowned upon religion. Her husband Jan was a bit of an anomaly, a Polish Catholic raised in a working-class Jewish neighborhood with a devoutly Catholic mother and a father who brought him up as a firm atheist. She always wore a religious medallion around her neck and it is believed that she prayed. She was raised a strict Catholic and both of her children (Ryszard and Teresa) were baptized. The real Zookeeper's Wife, Antonina (born Antonina Erdman), was a Russian-born Pole who lost her parents in the early days of the Russian Revolution at the hands of the Bolsheviks. Author Diane Ackerman drew in part from Antonina's diary for her book on which the movie is based. 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. She assisted with the day-to-day operations at the zoo, including caring for the animals. She also had an affinity for the piano and painting. The Zookeeper's Wife true story reveals that Antonina Zabinski was a teacher and respected author who published children's books about animals. 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. During the occupation of Poland he also held the title of superintendent of the city's public parks from 1939-1945. He was a zoologist and zootechnician by trade, in addition to being a scientist and an author of books about biology and animal psychology. 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. What were Jan and Antonina Zabinski's exact roles at the Warsaw Zoo? Antonina Zabinski, The Zookeeper's Wife: A War Story
I feel like I'm drowning in a gray sea, like they're flooding the whole city, washing away our past and people, dashing everything from the face of the earth.
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