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The Zookeeper's Wife: A War Story Chapter 3 Summary

How It All Goes Down

  • Riding his bicycle around the zoo, Jan encounters a woman talking to a parrot. Polly want a straightjacket?
  • The woman is Magdalena Gross, a sculptor.
  • Jan suggests that Magdalena stay in the zoo and sculpt animals.
  • Magdalena and Antonina form "an important friendship" (3.3), but we won't see Mags again until Chapter 18.
  • In the summer of 1939, young Ryś befriends a badger and leads him around the zoo by a leash. Or he plays with his friends.
  • However, a war is brewing, and these little games of "build[ing] fortifications for war" (3.13) don't seem all that innocent anymore to Antonina.