Goldberg about the journey of Oh, I Remember the Black Birch which is inspired by true events. Playwright Velina Hasu Houston is also in conversation with producer and dramaturg Keren M. The cast, director, and playwright of Oh, I Remember the Black Birch discuss their new original play about a young Jewish woman struggling in a new country and finding community during the Holocaust. Seen through her many struggles in Kobe, Brina is surprised to find an established Jewish community and nurturing Japanese residents and organizations working to support the arriving Jewish refugees. Thus unfolds a little-known true story of what happened to Jewish refugees when Japanese Diplomat Chiune Sugihara was stationed in Kovno, Lithuania and wrote transit visas to Japan, saving thousands of Jews who were running from the advancing German army. In the Autumn of 1941, 18-year-old Brina Berman, a Jewish Polish young woman from Warsaw, finds herself alone in Kobe, Japan, having traveled halfway across the world following the Nazi invasion of her hometown and murder of her family. This program is part of the 2021 Moment Theater Festival. Explore Epstein’s photos of the zoo-along with the Żabiński’s home-below. The house is not a proper museum, Rembiszewski says, though it is used for special events and small concerts. The Zookeeper’s Wife: A War Story, by Diane Ackerman, tells the true story of Antonina and Jan Zabinski who helped rescue hundreds of Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto during World War II by hiding them in the empty animal enclosures at the zoo. Her guide was Jan Maciej Rembiszewski, the zoo’s recently retired director. In 2014, Moment editor Nadine Epstein visited Warsaw as a guest of the foreign ministry of Poland and was given a private tour of the Żabińskis’ home, which was closed to the public. Jan and Antonina, who died in 19, respectively, are the inspiration for Diane Ackerman’s 2007 book, The Zookeeper’s Wife, as well as the film of the same name, now playing in theaters and starring Jessica Chastain as Antonina.
On September 1, 1939, the aerial bombardment of Warsaw commences as German forces storm Poland. He is aided by his wife, Antonina (Jessica Chastain). They hid some in former animal cells and others inside their home on the zoo’s property. Jan Zabinski (Johan Heldenbergh) is the director of the Warsaw Zoo, one of the largest and most prolific zoos in 1930s Europe. The Nazis shipped most of the animals to Germany, and in the years that followed, Jan and his wife, Antonina, turned the zoo into a refuge for hundreds of Jews who had escaped the ghetto.
#Story of the zookeepers wife movie#
Let’s hope that the latest movie will enocourage more people to visit Warsaw and discover the fate of Jan and Antonina Żabiński as well as other Poles who risked their lives to rescue Jews during the Second World War.When the Nazis invaded Poland, Jan Żabiński was the director of the Warsaw Zoo, founded in 1928 on 99 acres in the central part of the city.
They both survived the war and stayed in the zoo after it had finished.Ī few years ago, the original building of the Żabiński villa was opened for visitors of the Warsaw Zoo and is an important part of all tours following the steps of Warsaw Jews during the second World War. Jan Żabiński joined the Polish army and fought in the Warsaw Uprising of 1944.
Antnonia not only took care of the people who were hiding in the zoo, but also she did her best to maintain the semblance of the pre-war life in the villa by still keeping animals there – the famous badger, otters, lynxes. Throughout the whole period of the war, over 300 Jews found shelter there. They were both active members of a very well-developed Polish resistance movement and they finally engaged into the action of rescuing Jews by hiding them in the zoo. However, Jan and Antonia continued to live in the villa, while the zoo was transformed into a pig and fur farm. Just like almost the entire city, the zoo was destroyed in the bombings and finally closed under German occupation. Their happy life ended in 1939 together with the sudden German invasion into Poland. Antonia was well-known for her great liking for animals, she even established an animal nursery in their villa in the zoo.
The book and the movie tell the story of Jan and Antonia Żabińscy, who worked at the Warsaw Zoo from 1930. We all hope that it is going to change after the movie based on the best-selling novel of Diane Ackerman hits the cinemas in March 2017. Ironically, their story is better known in the U.S. One of the most touching and famous stories of Poles rescuing Jews is the story of the Director of Warsaw Zoo, Jan Żabiński, and his wife Antonia, the main characters of a very successful book, the “Zookeepers Wife”. Poles are the biggest nation group awarded the title Righteous Among the Nations by the state of Israel. During the horryfing times of the Second World War and the Holocaust, there were many brave Poles who helped Jews escape from their cruel fate.
0 kommentar(er)
