Elise asked Diane Ackerman:

This question contains spoilers… (view spoiler)

Diane Ackerman The Żabiński’s as Christians could easily have survived the war. They didn’t have to risk their lives and the life of their child, but they were so disgusted by Nazi racism that they felt that it was the only decent human thing to do. I’ve read the accounts of all of the Polish rescuers and they all say exactly the same thing. They say, as the Żabiński’s did, we weren’t heroes, anyone in our situation would have done the right thing. It was what any decent person would do. Now, then you can ask yourself what informed that sense of humanitarian responsibility. Is it their religious background? Is it their inherent goodness? These are the questions that are hard to answer, but there are people all over the planet everyday who are performing acts of mercy and heroism for others. It’s a very strong drive in human beings to help one another, to feel compassion with one another, to be able to put yourself in one another’s shoes and want to make life better for them.

Antonina had a mystical relationship with animals. Also, she felt intimately woven into the fabric of nature in the ways I felt a deep kinship with her the second I started reading what she wrote about how she felt about animals and nature. I felt that she was a sister. Of course, we differed in so many different ways. She was tall, blonde and Catholic to mention just a few, and grew up in wartime of course. She was a caregiver for so many people, but in some vital ways in her belief in the essential goodness of people and her willingness to help them. To not just survive, but thrive. I identified with her and I know that the other women in the film identified with her also. The film is very sumptuous to watch and exquisite in sensory detail that allows the viewers to be immersed in the era. That’s exactly what I was trying to do in the book as well. Create the sensory experience of being Antonina and of the world that she was moving through from day to day. The story is inherently rich. Her story is rich with moral courage, love and compassionate bearing. She was very determined, intelligent, clever, brave and she was afraid. I think we sometimes get confused and think that heroes and heroines are people who aren’t afraid, but that’s not true. They’re afraid, but they perform these extraordinary acts for others anyway. She was an otherwise so called “ordinary person” who could reach deep into herself and identify with the plight of others and want to help them, which allowed her to rise to heights that she might not have realized she could.

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