Warsaw Zoo...

Last year I read The Zookeeper’s Wife, a true account of how the zookeepers saved dozens of Jews by helping them get out of the ghetto, hide in the zoo and then move to safety. My memory is so bad that I forgot about it until I was in town and Veronica asked if I was going to the zoo to see where it happened; unfortunately that meant I was too late to organize a tour.

The zoo opened in 1928. It was bombed in 1939 and then closed in 1940; the remaining “valuable” animals were moved to Germany and the rest were killed. The zookeepers’ home called the Crazy Star Villa was built in 1931. It was the only building in the zoo that wasn’t destroyed. The villa’s basement as well as animal enclosures were used to hide Jews.

Frankly, I wasn’t that impressed with the zoo itself.

We enjoyed visiting the Cathedral of St. Michael across from the zoo. Originally built in 1904, it was blown up by the retreating Germans in 1944 and rebuilt in 1972.