58 pages • 1 hour read
Diane AckermanThe Zookeeper's Wife: A War Story
Nonfiction | Biography | Adult | Published in 2007A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Further Reading & Resources
Further Reading: Beyond Literature (Non-fiction)
Man’s Search for Meaning (1959) by Victor Frankl
Frankl, a psychiatrist and Jewish survivor of the Auschwitz concentration camp near Krakow, Poland, wrote this seminal study of human life by using reflections of his imprisonment to build the theoretical basis for logotherapy.
After the Darkness: Reflections on the Holocaust (2002) by Elie Wiesel
Also a concentration camp survivor, Elie Wiesel writes this monograph 50 years after his imprisonment as a reflection on Nazi atrocities and what can be learned from them.
When Light Pierced the Darkness: Christian Rescue of Jews in Nazi-Occupied Poland (1986) by Nechama Tec
This is a historical account of the role of Christian Poles in aiding persecuted Jewish Poles.
Poland (2015) by James A. Michener
A novelized version of accurate Polish history, this book particularly describes the conflicted history between Poland and its European neighbors, especially Germany.
Video & Podcast Resources
The Zookeeper’s Wife (2017) by Focus Features
This is a wide-release motion picture based upon Ackerman’s narrative; the movie strays from the facts as recorded by Ackerman to a degree, though most of the book’s major events are included in the film.
Schindler’s List (1993) by Universal
This movie features an accurate retelling of the efforts of Oscar Schindler, an opportunistic non-Jewish man, to save 1100 Polish Jews from Nazi death camps.
