‘The Zookeeper’s Wife’

Across the river, the skyline of Old Town rose from the early-morning mist like sentences written in invisible ink--first just the roofs, whose curved terra cotta tiles overlapped like pigeon feathers--then a story of sea-green, pink, yellow, red, copper, and beige row houses that lined cobblestone streets leading to Market Square. In the 1930s, an open-air market served the Praga district, too, near the vodka factory on Z˛abkowska (Tooth) Street designed to look like a squat castle. But it wasn't as festive as Old Town's, where dozens of vendors sold produce, crafts, and food below yellow and tan awnings, the shop windows displayed Baltic amber, and for a few groschen a trained parrot would pick your fortune from a small jug of paper scrolls.

Just beyond Old Town lay the large Jewish Quarter, full of mazy streets, women wearing wigs and men sideburn curls, religious dancing, a mix of dialects and aromas, tiny shops, dyed silks, and flat-roofed buildings where iron balconies, painted black or moss green, rose one above the other, like opera boxes filled not with people but with tomato pots and flowers. There one could also find a special kind of pierogi, large chewy kreplach: fist-sized dumplings filled with seasoned stew meat and onions before being boiled, baked, then fried, the last step glazing and toughening them like bagels.

The heartbeat of eastern European Jewish culture, the Quarter offered Jewish theater and film, newspapers and magazines, artists and publishing houses, political movements, sports and literary clubs. For centuries, Poland had granted asylum to Jews fleeing persecution in England, France, Germany, and Spain. Some twelfth century Polish coins even bear Hebrew inscriptions, and one legend has it that Jews found Poland attractive because the country's name sounded like the Hebrew imperative po lin ("rest here"). Yet anti-Semitism still percolated in twentieth century Warsaw, a city of 1.3 million people, a third of whom were Jewish. They mainly settled in the Quarter, but also lived in posher neighborhoods throughout the city, though for the most part they kept their distinctive garb, language, and culture, with some speaking no Polish at all.

Reprinted from 'The Zookeeper's Wife' by Diane Ackerman. (c) 2007. With permission of the publisher, W.W. Norton & Company Inc.

© 2008