The Zookeeper's Wife- A War Story by Diane Ackerman

The Nazi's had some fucking stupid, and some fucking strange, ideas. Their interest in Eastern religions is well known, but not that often understood. It seems to come down partly to an obsession with race, bloodlines and purity, a common theme in Nazi thought.

Hitler assigned top Nazis with the job of finding the source of the Ayran race. They believed it originated in Tibet, and even went on research missions to Tibet itself.

But Nazi ideas on race and eugenics sometimes went beyond even humans. Nazi ideas on animals are among the themes in the true tale of The Zookeeper's Wife. Before war breaks out in Warsaw, Jan and Antonina ran a zoo in the Polish capital. The beginning of the book  describes this as a happy time, and concentrates on expressing Antonina's natural empathy with animals, and the individuality of the animals themselves.

Under German occupation, Jan and Antonina come back into contact with Lutz Heck, a Berlin zoo owner and a top Nazi. He promises to protect their Zoo, but most of the animals are taken away to Germany. In all likelihood, 'inferior' animals were killed, whilst 'superior' animals were bred and preserved. The Nazis had absurd fantasies of re-creating 'pure' extinct animals like the auroch (something like a buffalo) and the tarpan (a kind of wild horse). The Nazis applied their ideas to people and animals alike, and so treated animals just like people, or, more accurately, treated people just like animals.

In The Zookeeper's Wife, Heck's promise turns out to be fairly worthless, not only does he turn up drunk with friends and start shooting animals randomly, but the Zoo, like so much in Warsaw, is used throughout the war for whatever purpose will benefit the Germans. Firstly, it is a pig farm, and after that a fox farm, used to provide meat and fur to German soldiers.

But Ackerman concentrates on the true story of Jan and Antonina, who, though Christian, concentrate on saving and protecting Jews throughout the war. They hide Jews in their Zoo, smuggle them  out of the Ghetto where Jews were kept, and take part in other Underground activities such as poisoning the pork they were supplying to the German military.

Ackerman is a fine , descriptive writer. A story centered so much on animals could risk being too sentimental and cute, but with the frank descriptions of everyday brutality that doesn't happen.

The most interesting thing about the book, for me, was the insight into Nazi thought. Ethnic cleansing is not a new idea and is still happening today. It is absurd, though. Yes, there is something in our tribal natures that makes us sometimes want to believe that one group is better than another. You only have to look at the world cup or women wearing expensive hats to a wedding to see that.

The Nazis , in their way, thought they were making the human race move forward. But the human race can't go anywhere as long as we follow our predictable patterns of tribalism and fighting over fuck-all. Only when we look at our behaviour, see that we're not fighting over religion or ideology, but , in most cases, over power and resources, can we actually evolve and stop history repeating itself. Until that happens, we'll go on fighting, just like animals.