Artis Zoo

From 1941, the zoo was off-limits to Jews. German soldiers liked visiting the zoo. They were not aware that several Jewish people, and later also dozens of young men evading forced labour in Germany, were hiding in the zoo. The service buildings and animal enclosures provided many safe hiding places; in the monkey rock, above the birds of prey and behind the big cats.

Roughly 200 to 300 people were in hid in the zoo for short or longer periods of time. There were no raids in Artis, the Germans just did superficial inspections

Artis made it through the hunger winter. For a while the lions were fed “Stokvis” (dried cod). Sometimes the visitors would steal food from the animals (they did this using a long stick, with a nail on it) and one night one of the pigs from the petting zoo disappeared.

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Source

• Text: tmatic.travel
• Photos: TracesofWar