The Zookeeper's Wife (2017) on Netflix
PG-1320172h 7mBiographyDramaHistoryWar
Jan Zabinski and Antonina Zabinska keep the Warsaw Zoo until the German invasion destroys it. When the city's Jews are forced into a ghetto, the couple hides friends in the empty cages.
- Netflix3.9/5
- IMDb7.0/1049,530 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes64%
Trailer
Plot summary
Jan Zabinski directs the Warsaw Zoo with his wife Antonina. On 1 September 1939, German bombs wreck the cages and kill or scatter the animals, and the Germans occupy Warsaw. Lutz Heck, head of the Berlin Zoo and Jan's rival, arrives while Jan is away, offers to take the prized animals to Berlin, then returns with soldiers to shoot those left behind; he grows interested in Antonina. When the city's Jews are forced into a ghetto, the Zabinskis hide their friend Magda Gross and others on the zoo grounds. Jan proposes the abandoned zoo become a pig farm for the occupying forces, a cover for moving people out of the ghetto. Jan drives garbage trucks into the ghetto and hides passengers among the loads, while Antonina plays the piano to signal when it is safe to come out.
Cast
Show all 20 cast
- Theo Prestonas Stefcio Kenigswein (as Theodore Preston)
- Viktoria Zakharyanovaas Stefania Keningswein (as Viktoria Zakharyanová)
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Zookeeper's Wife (2017)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Lutz Heck, the film's antagonist, was a real figure whose animal breeding experiments are a matter of historical record, only his intimate relationship with Antonina Żabińska was exaggerated for the screen.
