Whenever Gross left home, there was always the chance of being recognized and denounced, but in an atmosphere of daily street executions and house searches, Antonina worried when she heard a rumor that Nazis had been combing through the apartment houses in Magdalena's neighborhood, at odd hours, raiding attics and basements to roust out hidden Jews. (18.30)

According to Jan, "The personality of animals will develop according to how you raise, train, educate them—you can't generalize about them. Just like people who own dogs and cats will tell you, no two are exactly alike. Who knew that a rabbit could learn to kiss a human, open doors, or give us reminders about dinnertime?" (18.8)

Antonina worried about her friend, sculptor Magdalena Gross, whose life and art had derailed with the bombing of the zoo, which wasn't just her open-air workshop but her compass, in both senses, an imaginative realm for her work and a direction for her life. (18.19)