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Authors: Diane Ackerman
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would be shipped to Germany as slave labor; and 330,000 would simply be shot.
With courage and ingenuity, the Polish Resistance would sabotage German equipment, derail trains, blow up bridges, print over 1,100 periodicals, make radio broadcasts, teach in covert high schools and colleges (attended by 100,000 students), aid Jews in hiding, supply arms, make bombs, assassinate Gestapo agents, rescue prisoners, stage secret plays, publish books, lead feats of civil resistance, hold its own law courts, and run couriers to and from the London-based government-in-exile. Its military wing, the Home Army, at its height included 380,000 soldiers—among them, Jan Żabiński, who later told interviewers, "from the very beginning, I was connected to the Home Army in the area of the zoo." Confusing as life during occupation must have been, the clandestine Polish state, linked by language rather than territory, would fight nonstop for six years.
A key to the Underground's strength was its no-contact-upward policy and the unflagging use of pseudonyms and cryptonyms. If no one knew his superior, capture wouldn't endanger the core; and if no one knew anyone's real name, saboteurs proved hard to find. Underground headquarters floated around the city, and schools migrated from one church or apartment to another, while a band of couriers and illegal printshops kept everyone informed. The Underground Peasant Movement adopted the slogan of "As little, as late, and as bad as possible," and set about sabotaging deliveries to Germans and diverting supplies to people in the cities, repeatedly claiming delivery of the same grain or livestock, overstating receipts, conveniently losing, destroying, or hiding provisions. Forced laborers in the secret German rocket program at Peenemünde urinated on the electronics to corrode them, crippling the rockets. The Resistance encompassed so many cells that anyone could find a niche, regardless of age, education, or nerve. Jan had a penchant for risk, which he later told a reporter he found exciting, adding in his understated way that its pulse-revving gamble felt rather "like playing chess—either I win or I lose."
CHAPTER 7
W ITH AUTUMN, COLD BEGAN SEEPING UNDER DOORS AND through tiny cracks, and at night hoarse winds dashed across the villa's flat roof, billowed any plywood shutters that had warped, and squalled around the walled terrace. Despite its disheveled buildings and lawns, the zoo bedded down its few remaining animals for winter, but nothing looked the way it had before the war, least of all the seasonal tableaux of zoo life. The tempo of the days used to change dramatically as the zoo entered its own period of hibernation: boulevards, normally crowded with as many as ten thousand people during the summer holiday, would grow almost deserted; a few people would visit the Monkey House, the elephants, the predators' islands, or the seal pool. But the long columns of schoolchildren waiting in line to ride llamas, ponies, camels, or little pedal cars would evaporate. Delicate animals like flamingos and pelicans, venturing outside for a short constitutional each day, would march gingerly in single file over frozen ground. As the days shortened and tree branches grew bare, most animals would stay indoors, while the tone of the zoo paled from raucous to mumbling during what's known in the trade as the dead season , a time of animal rest and human repair.
Even in its reduced wartime state, the zoo endured as a complex living machine, where one wobbly screw or stripped gear could trigger a catastrophe, and a zoo director couldn't afford to miss a rusty bolt or a monkey's runny nose, forget to lock or adjust the warmth in a building, overlook a bison's badly matted beard. All this became doubly serious during windstorm, rain, or frost.
Missing now were all the women who used to rake fallen leaves, the men who insulated the roofs and stable walls with straw, the gardeners who wreathed the roses and
With courage and ingenuity, the Polish Resistance would sabotage German equipment, derail trains, blow up bridges, print over 1,100 periodicals, make radio broadcasts, teach in covert high schools and colleges (attended by 100,000 students), aid Jews in hiding, supply arms, make bombs, assassinate Gestapo agents, rescue prisoners, stage secret plays, publish books, lead feats of civil resistance, hold its own law courts, and run couriers to and from the London-based government-in-exile. Its military wing, the Home Army, at its height included 380,000 soldiers—among them, Jan Żabiński, who later told interviewers, "from the very beginning, I was connected to the Home Army in the area of the zoo." Confusing as life during occupation must have been, the clandestine Polish state, linked by language rather than territory, would fight nonstop for six years.
A key to the Underground's strength was its no-contact-upward policy and the unflagging use of pseudonyms and cryptonyms. If no one knew his superior, capture wouldn't endanger the core; and if no one knew anyone's real name, saboteurs proved hard to find. Underground headquarters floated around the city, and schools migrated from one church or apartment to another, while a band of couriers and illegal printshops kept everyone informed. The Underground Peasant Movement adopted the slogan of "As little, as late, and as bad as possible," and set about sabotaging deliveries to Germans and diverting supplies to people in the cities, repeatedly claiming delivery of the same grain or livestock, overstating receipts, conveniently losing, destroying, or hiding provisions. Forced laborers in the secret German rocket program at Peenemünde urinated on the electronics to corrode them, crippling the rockets. The Resistance encompassed so many cells that anyone could find a niche, regardless of age, education, or nerve. Jan had a penchant for risk, which he later told a reporter he found exciting, adding in his understated way that its pulse-revving gamble felt rather "like playing chess—either I win or I lose."
CHAPTER 7
W ITH AUTUMN, COLD BEGAN SEEPING UNDER DOORS AND through tiny cracks, and at night hoarse winds dashed across the villa's flat roof, billowed any plywood shutters that had warped, and squalled around the walled terrace. Despite its disheveled buildings and lawns, the zoo bedded down its few remaining animals for winter, but nothing looked the way it had before the war, least of all the seasonal tableaux of zoo life. The tempo of the days used to change dramatically as the zoo entered its own period of hibernation: boulevards, normally crowded with as many as ten thousand people during the summer holiday, would grow almost deserted; a few people would visit the Monkey House, the elephants, the predators' islands, or the seal pool. But the long columns of schoolchildren waiting in line to ride llamas, ponies, camels, or little pedal cars would evaporate. Delicate animals like flamingos and pelicans, venturing outside for a short constitutional each day, would march gingerly in single file over frozen ground. As the days shortened and tree branches grew bare, most animals would stay indoors, while the tone of the zoo paled from raucous to mumbling during what's known in the trade as the dead season , a time of animal rest and human repair.
Even in its reduced wartime state, the zoo endured as a complex living machine, where one wobbly screw or stripped gear could trigger a catastrophe, and a zoo director couldn't afford to miss a rusty bolt or a monkey's runny nose, forget to lock or adjust the warmth in a building, overlook a bison's badly matted beard. All this became doubly serious during windstorm, rain, or frost.
Missing now were all the women who used to rake fallen leaves, the men who insulated the roofs and stable walls with straw, the gardeners who wreathed the roses and
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