Some stories are too important to be forgotten. It has to be told and retold as many times and by as many people. Diane Ackerman, unfortunately, isn't one of them. The prose is stunted, scattered and poetic. When narrating story of the brave people who were thoughtful, kind and brilliant in the way they executed their plan, they deserve a better narrator. The flowery prose is a distraction from the complexity of the times Antonia Zabinski and her husband Jan lived in. 
 It takes a different kind of courage and humanity to see life of animals to be as important as humans.