The Zookeeper's Wife: A War Story Chapter 18 Summary

How It All Goes Down

  • We now rejoin The Zookeeper's Wife, already in progress.
  • It's 1941, and summer passes into autumn.
  • Then, on the next page, autumn passes into winter.
  • "All the Guests were spirited away to other winter safe houses" (18.4).
  • Keeping Antonina and Ryś company are a rabbit named Wicek (Vincent, in English) and a chicken named Kuba (Jacob).
  • The rambunctious rabbit terrorizes the house like a real-life Bugs Bunny.
  • In Spring 1942, Guests arrive at the zoo once more.
  • One of the Guests is Antonina's BFF from Chapter 3, Magdalena Gross.
  • Magdalena tries to avoid staying at the zoo for as long as she can, not because she doesn't like the zoo, but because she wants to live some semblance of a normal life.
  • That's impossible in Nazi-occupied Warsaw, so Magdalena eventually flees for the zoo.