The daughter of former Warsaw Zoo directors Jan and Antonina Zabinski, who saved hundreds of Jews from the Holocaust by hiding them at the zoo and whose story was told in the Hollywood movie “The Zookeeper's Wife,” has died.
The zoo said on its Facebook Sunday that Teresa Zabinska-Zawadzki died the previous night, at age 77. It did not give the cause of her death.
“She always talked with pride about her parents and their heroism,” the zoo said.
FILE - In this file photo dated Tuesday, March 7, 2017, Hollywood star Jessica Chastain, left, who plays the main character and Teresa Zabinska, the daughter of Jan and Antonina Zabinski pose prior to the gala screening of "The Zookeeper's Wife", in Warsaw, Poland. Teresa Zabinska-Zawadzki, the daughter of former Warsaw ZOO directors Jan and Antonina Zabinski, who saved hundreds of Jews from the Holocaust by hiding them at the zoo, and whose story was told in the 2017 Hollywood movie “The Zookeeper’s Wife,” died Saturday aged 77, the zoo said on its Facebook page Sunday March 31, 2021.(AP PhotoAlik Keplicz, FILE)
It said that after having lived in Denmark, she returned to Warsaw some years ago.
Zabinska-Zawadzki was born at the zoo in 1944, under Nazi German occupation of Poland during World War II. For years during the war her parents saved some 300 Jews by hiding them at their villa on the zoo grounds, or in empty animal enclosures. Zabinska-Zawadzki's brother Ryszard, who was 12 years older than her, brought food to the people in hiding and was featured in the movie. He died in 2019.
Israel's Yad Vashem Institute has recognized the Zabinskis as Righteous Among the Nations for having risked the family’s lives in order to save Jewish lives.
In 2017, Zabinska-Zawadzki attended Warsaw’s gala screening of “The Zookeeper’s Wife,” a movie starring Jessica Chastain, about her parents’ heroism.
The movie was based on a 2007 U.S. bestseller book by the same title, written by American author Diane Ackerman, that revealed the story to the world.
WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — Organizers of Australia’s largest free literary festival canceled the event Tuesday after more than 180 writers and speakers withdrew over the scrapping of an appearance by an Australian-Palestinian writer and academic.
The uproar began when the board of the Adelaide Festival, which runs Adelaide Writers Week, announced on Jan. 8 that they had disinvited Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah from the event “given her previous statements” and citing cultural sensitivities “at this unprecedented time so soon after” an antisemitic mass shooting at Sydney’s Bondi Beach.
There was no suggestion that Abdel-Fattah or her writings “have any connection with the tragedy,” the board members added.
They didn’t cite any specific statements by the lawyer, academic and writer of fiction and nonfiction that prompted their decision. Abdel-Fattah decried the move as “censorship” and said the announcement suggested that her “mere presence” was culturally insensitive.
By Tuesday, when the event was canceled, most of the programmed speakers had withdrawn. The episode unfolded amid a fraught national debate in Australia about limits on speech following the Bondi shooting.
A father and son who were apparently inspired by Islamic State group ideology are accused of the massacre during a Hanukkah event in December, in which 15 people were shot dead. The surviving suspect, Naveed Akram, has not entered a plea to the dozens of murder, terrorism and other charges he faces.
In the aftermath, the Jewish Community Council for South Australia — the state where Adelaide is located — wrote to the festival to lobby for Abdel-Fattah’s exclusion, the group's spokesperson Norman Schueler told The Adelaide Advertiser. The Premier of South Australia state Peter Malinauskus also supported the writer’s removal.
The Adelaide Writers Week was scheduled to run for six days beginning in late February, as part of a wider annual culture festival. The 2025 literary event was the festival’s 40th and attracted 160,000 attendees.
Born in Australia to Palestinian and Egyptian parents, Abdel-Fattah often writes about Islamophobia and had been invited to speak about her novel Discipline, which follows two Muslims, a journalist and a university student, navigating issues of censorship in Sydney. She has been a critic of the Israeli government and an advocate for Palestinians throughout the two-year war in Gaza.
After the board’s statement canceling Abdel-Fattah’s appearance, other speakers on the program — including British novelist Zadie Smith and former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern — withdrew from their events too. The Festival’s director quit Tuesday, citing her objections to the board’s decision to disinvite Abdel-Fattah.
Louise Adler, a Jewish Australian, wrote in the Guardian that she could not “be party to silencing writers.” She said 70% of the event's speakers had withdrawn.
Hours later, a statement on the Festival’s Facebook page said that the event would not proceed and that all remaining board members would resign. The statement, which was not attributed to a named individual, offered an apology to Abdel-Fattah for “how the decision was represented.”
Board members wanted to “reiterate this is not about identity or dissent but rather a continuing rapid shift in the national discourse around the breadth of freedom of expression in our nation following Australia’s worst terror attack in history,” the statement said.
Abdel-Fattah rejected the apology in a post on X Tuesday, lambasting the decision to cancel her appearance as “a blatant act of anti-Palestinian racism.” She said the board had apologized for how her removal was presented but not for the decision itself.
The removal of Abdel-Fattah prompted some sponsors of the event to withdraw, too. The fate of the wider Adelaide Festival was unclear Tuesday, although a new board was due to be appointed Wednesday.
The event is a major draw for the state and generated millions of dollars in revenue and hundreds of jobs in 2025, a report by the festival organization said.
Abdel-Fattah’s exclusion came amid proposed or enacted law changes covering hate speech, protest and guns after the Bondi massacre. New South Wales state, where the shooting happened, swiftly passed a law in December banning protest gatherings during periods following terrorism declarations.
The state is also mulling changes that would criminalize certain chants, including some used at pro-Palestinian rallies.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced Tuesday that he would recall the federal parliament in January to vote on his proposed measures to tighten Australia's gun controls and lower criminal thresholds for prosecuting hate speech. He has also announced a major national inquiry, called a royal commission, into antisemitism in Australia and the Bondi attack specifically.
Albanese said a national day of mourning for those killed would be held on Jan. 22.
FILE - New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern gestures as she gives her victory speech to Labour Party members at an event in Auckland, New Zealand, Oct. 17, 2020. (AP Photo/Mark Baker, File)
