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When I asked Caro why she did that, she said that she just wanted to “honor those who had passed through the zoo, and that seemed like a lyrical and appropriate way to do it.” In an odd touch, as the war comes to an end, little Jewish stars are painted on the walls of the zoo. Niki Caro does a fine job in navigating the screenplay, by Angela Workman, from suspense to pathos. I worried about the growing power that Heck held over Antonina. How can a film set during the Holocaust be a feel-good movie, especially for Jews? Don’t get me wrong! I sat on the edge of my seat for a great deal of the movie. Harry Gregson-Williams’s musical score is superb. Tel Aviv native Shira Haas as the young Urszula, who leaves the ghetto psychologically damaged but comes alive on Passover eve to initiate a seder in hiding, deserves special mention. Every time that yet another child is lifted onto the death train another wound is inflicted on the viewer.ĭaniel Bruhl does a fine job as the predatory Nazi Lutz Heck, and Israeli actors Efrat Dor and Iddo Goldberg, as Jews sheltered and saved by the Zabinskis, give moving and real portrayals. Niki Caro’s direction of this scene is incredibly powerful. Instead, he asks the zoologist to help him put the children onto the freight train headed for the death camps. The second time, Korczak explains that he cannot leave his children. Jan Korczak (Arnost Goldflam), the famous author and orphanage director, and offers him an opportunity to escape to freedom. In moving scenes, Zabinski twice goes to Dr. The Flemish actor is soft and sensitive when the role calls for it, but at other times he is forceful and dynamic as the non-Jew who grew up with Jews and would not accept bias and hatred. Johan Hardenbergh provides a compelling portrayal of Antonina’s husband, Jan. Chastain does a masterful job in the role. We watch her develop as a woman and as a human being, even as she takes greater and greater risks and the danger surrounding her intensifies. She becomes the overseer of the safe haven and the engineer of the underground escape route. We watch Antonina’s character develop as she moves from the periphery, as a wife whose job is to assist her husband, into a woman who shows immense courage and takes control. Jessica Chastain gives Antonina a strong presence. Unlike in the ghetto, where confinement was a prelude to deportation and death, the zoos’ underground cages provided safety and comfort. Director Caro and her cinematographer, Andrij Parekh, masterfully shot through those cages into dark places and shadowed hallways. It was those same cages that once held their animals that the Zabinskis would use for Jews’ escape route. Though we see suffering on the streets of the ghetto, and eventually we see its destruction, we also see the incredible impact that a few good people could have. When the Nazis arrive, they seem to have the same disregard for some of the animals, shooting them at will, as they do with Jews. Director Niki Caro and her crew worked extremely hard to create a world where both animals and human beings are confined for the amusement of others.īoth people and animals were in an alien environment - the only difference was that at least at first the animals were well cared for, while the Jews simply were being held for the slaughter.Ĭaro uses the cages in the zoo and in the ghetto to make her point. The visual contrast between a zoo that kept animals barred inside and a ghetto, just down the road, where Jews were kept behind barbed wire and walls, is powerful. What took place at the zoo during the war years provides the framework for what is an incredible story of two heroes, Righteous Among the Nations, who risked everything to save Jewish lives. The Zabinskis soon realized that their zoo grounds now could provide refuge for another species in danger of extinction - their Jewish friends and neighbors. Many of its animals were killed in the bombings. When Poland was invaded by Nazi Germany in 1939, the zoo suffered extensive damage and was forced to close. Get The Jewish Standard Newsletter by email and never miss our top stories
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Working by his side, his wife, Antonina, an author of children’s books about animals, helped to care for the animals and run the zoo. Jan Zabinski was highly regarded not only for the zoo he oversaw, but for the popular books about biology and animal behavior that he wrote.
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It also was home to one of Europe’s finest zoos Dr. In the 1930s, Warsaw was a center of Jewish life, home to more than 350,000 Jews, who made up about 30 percent of the city’s total population.