Film shares zookeepers' efforts to save Jewish refugees

“The Zookeeper’s Wife” is a movie you need to see.

It’s the very good and previously untold story of Jan Zabinski and Antonina Zabinski, Polish husband-and-wife zookeepers, who are the owners of the Warsaw Zoo. After the September 1939 German invasion of Poland, the couple opened their zoo to Jewish refugees and continued to “host” people throughout the occupation.

The Zabinskis smuggled the refugees out of the Warsaw ghetto, hiding them in animal cages and basement tunnels leading from the house to the zoo. Considering that the German army had commandeered the zoo for an armory, this “hiding in plain sight” strategy was extremely risky.

When Jan, the zookeeper (Johan Helden-bergh) explains to his wife, Anton-iania (Jessica Chastain) how they can use the tunnels and shelters she nods after hearing his plan and with a faraway look says “A human zoo.”

The film adaptation, written by Angela Workman and directed by Nikki Caro, has many lovely and moving moments.

Of note to know that only two of the 300 Jewish “guests” (as they referred to them) hidden in the zoo were captured by the Nazis and murdered. The rest survived. They don’t come away unscathed but it is evident that these were people who would have fared far worse if they didn’t do anything at all.

The film does a good job working through the moral struggles of people who could not turn a blind eye to injustice.

Despite the starvation and terror experienced at the time, there are still teachers and pupils — the Righteous among the Nations — who put their lives on the line to smuggle Jews out with a garbage removal scheme.

Also unsettling, other Poles dress up to take the World War II equivalent of a selfie in front of the fortified gate. One note of fair warning are the animal scenes. It was not real but does bear knowing going in that although no animals were harmed in the making they are portrayed as having been.

Overall, the story is worth telling and worthy of remembrance.

The film is showing at the Panida Theater on Friday, May 5, at 5:30 p.m.; Saturday, May 6, at 3:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. and on Sunday, May 7 at 3:30 p.m.

Also coming up at the Panida will be: “After the Storm”, “Vaxxed”, “The Sisterhood of Shred”, “Embrace”, “Colossal, Outdoor Idaho”: “Almost Canada”, and “Sense the Wind”.

Patricia Walker is the executive director of the Panida Theater. She can be reached at panida.org.