World War Wednesdays: The Warsaw Zoo: Story Behind the Film

   
    Welcome back, history buffs! Now that I'm in the middle of my last undergraduate exam season, I can't help but think of all the things I'd rather be doing than writing an endless pile of papers. Right near the top of the list is going to the movies, because there is what looks to be a fantastic film in theaters that portrays an amazing true story about the Holocaust. The Zookeeper's Wife draws from the unpublished diary of Antonina Zabinska, and recounts the true story of she and her husband Jan's incredible act of bravery as part of the Polish resistance.

Jan Zabinski, Yad Vashem

     The Warsaw Zoo under acclaimed director Jan Zabinski was one of Europe's largest zoos during the 1930s, and its expanded area was home to many animals including Tuzinka the elephant, its star attraction. When the Second World War broke out in 1939, vast sections of the zoo were destroyed in the bombings, many animals were killed, and others (including Tuzinka) were taken to Germany. Despite these horrors, Zabinski was aware of the immense human suffering on behalf Warsaw's Jews at the hands of the German occupiers. When the Warsaw Ghetto was established, he and his wife Antonina took it upon themselves to help their Jewish neighbors.

Antonina Zabinski, Yad Vashem

     As an employee of the Warsaw municipality, Jan was allowed to enter the ghetto, and under the pretext of supervising the trees and small public garden on the other side of the walls, would regularly visit and assist its inhabitants. As the situation in the ghetto rapidly deteriorated, Zabinski took his aid one step further by offering shelter to the Warsaw Jews, taking them over to the Aryan side, providing them with essential lifesaving documents, finding them accommodations, and, when necessary, sheltering them on the zoo's grounds and at his personal home. Regina Koenigstein describes the Zabinski villa as a modern Noah's Ark, and according to many testimonies numerous Jews found temporary shelter in the zoo's abandoned animal cells.

     The Zabinkkis' dangerous undertaking was not limited to the physical assistance of Warsaw Jews. Rachel Auerbach, who participated in attempts to establish a ghetto archive of sorts which documented the story of life behind the walls in Warsaw, was in touch with Zabinski throughout that period. She went into hiding after the ghetto liquidation and continued recording events in her diary, but as the front came closer to Warsaw, she gave one of her notebooks to Zabinski. He put it into a glass jar and buried it at the zoo, and in April 1945 she was able to retrieve her manuscript and publish it.

     Jan Zabinski also participated in the Polish uprising in Warsaw of August and September 1944 as a member of the Polish underground Home Army. He was taken as a prisoner to German upon its suppression, but Antonina was able to continue his work and attended to the needs of Jews left behind in the city's ruins. In his own testimony in explanation of his motives, Zabinski later reflected:
 “I do not belong to any party, and no party program was my guide during the occupation... I am a Pole – a democrat. My deeds were and are a consequence of a certain psychological composition, a result of 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.”

     Jan and Antonina Zabinski were recognized by Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations on September 21, 1965. All information is courtesy of Yad Vashem, and some incredible primary resources can be accessed here: http://www.yadvashem.org/righteous/stories/zabinski
Please let me know if you've seen the film, I'd love to hear more about it and look forward to seeing it myself!
     Thanks for reading,
Delany (DLeitchHistory on Twitter)

World War Wednesdays: Elephants at War

     A little while ago, I came across this image of a machine gun mounted upon the back of an elephant, and I wanted to read more about the role that elephants played in wartime. We've talked before about the animals of the First World War, but I had no idea that elephants were also involved. You learn something new everyday, and this is proof that no species on earth was spared the experiences of the world wars!

England

   
   During the ravages of the First World War, the intense demands of cavalry warfare led to most of England's horses being purchased by the British military and sent to the Western Front. For those on the home front trying to maintain food production, farmers and traders had to find alternative beasts of burden to carry out the heavy work.

     Pictured above is Lizzie the elephant, who performed tricks as part of a travelling menagerie before the war. When World War One broke out, she was conscripted to help with heavy labour, fitted with a harness, and sent to work at scrap metal merchants in the industrial city of Sheffield, England. Her task was to cart munitions, machines, and scrap metal, which had previously been done by three horses who were shipped off to war. 

     The World's Fair newspaper first documented Lizzie's appearance in February, 1916, noting how the "great dearth of carting facilities in Sheffield" had led to her being "pressed into service" from Sedgewick's menagerie. It read:

     "Last week it was seen striding along with ease drawing a load of iron to a munition works... The weight of the load was equal to that usually allotted to three horses... Some passing horses were startled by this unexpected 'dilution' of their labour, and sniffed and shied as the elephant passed".

     Naturally, this would have been a strange phenomenon for the people of Sheffield, who had never seen an elephant before in their lives. Apparently, Lizzie was quite a character, and there is a story about her putting her trunk through someone's window and stealing their dinner!

     Unfortunately, little is known about Lizzie's fate after the war, though there is some evidence that she went on to work at a farm.

     In the town of Horley, Surrey, England, elephants from the locally-based Lord Sanger's Circus were used during the war to plow fields and transport agricultural loads around farms. Of course, this useful work would also have provided the circus with publicity, so many people benefited from the arrangement. 

Germany
     In Germany, elephants experienced a different type of hardship, notably for those living in some of the world's oldest public zoos. Hunger blockades inflicted by Britain brought most German zoos to the verge of bankruptcy, with a vast reduction in animal populations due to food shortages.

 
   The Tierpark Hagenbeck is a private zoo in Hamburg established in 1863 by Carl Hagenbeck, Sr., a fish seller and amateur animal collector. It was the first zoo to have enclosures surrounded by moats rather than barred cages to seem more like a natural environment. During the First World War, many of the zookeepers were drafted into the army, and some of Hagenbeck's animals were rented out for hauling wood, coal, and on home deliveries, It would not have been unusual to see elephants or trained bears working as draft animals and yoked to heavy wagons.

     The Second World War again brought hardship to German zoos, and significantly to the elephant population. On July 24, 1943, Allied air raids destroyed three-quarters of the Tierpark Hagenbeck in 90 minutes, killing 9 men and 450 animals. In his book titled "Animals Are My Life", Lorenz Hagenbeck documented the devastating event:
     "The worst part of it, however, was the fire, which was now quite beyond control. When the first incendiaries came down on the roof of the elephant house and this burst into flames, our resourceful chief keeper, Fritz Theisinger, quickly loosed his fourteen elephants, which he had kept tethered by only one hind leg, and led them outside. There they could try to avoid the incendiaries which were falling everywhere, and they took refuge in the large pool. Next, aided by the Czech P.O.W.s, he made an attempt to save the house, but at this point the P.O.W.s lost their nerve and ran away."

Even after the war, elephants from the Hamburg Zoo were commissioned to assist with cleanup

     Last week, I talked about my interest in how historical events on a large scale affected individuals on a small scale, and this week's post goes beyond that to include even the most unlikely of the four-legged wartime experiences. It is hard to imagine how scary and unfamiliar these events would have been for these gentle giants, and their story serves as proof of the devastating effects of human conflict in all aspects of life.
     Thanks for reading, 
       Delany

Special thanks to: http://www.revisionist.net/zoo-bombing.html