chicating

The Zookeeper's Wife by Diane Ackerman is a fascinating portrayal of the horrors of life in Warsaw during World War Two, with a particular focus on the fate of the animals in the Warsaw zoo and the heroic efforts of two of the zookeepers to save hundreds of Jews by hiding them in the cages and helping them escape capture by the Nazis.

It's a tough read, which is to be expected - but, in addition to all the war atrocities I was already tangentially aware of, there's an awful lot of horrible things that happen to many of the animals in the book.

Still, I'm glad I read it (though I did think about giving up several times), as it told me a lot of interesting and important things about life in Warsaw at that time. It also showed a beautiful family, doing amazing things during turbulent times.

The prose was often lyrical and meandering, which jarred terribly with the often very baldly stated horrors - perhaps deliberately so. It also skimmed over certain things that left me with questions, whilst occasionally also lapsing into multi-page almost essays about various aspects of history, which were a bit tedious.

Overall, though, a well-written book about perhaps a largely unknown part of a very well documented war.