Warsaw Zoo

In September of 1939, Germany invaded Poland and bombs began falling on Warsaw.

Inside the Warsaw Zoo lived its director, Jan Żabinski, his wife Antonina, and their young son.

Their zoo was hit hard.

Animals were killed during the bombing.

And so she developed a system.

She decided that the piano in the living room would become a part of how they would alert the people below when danger was there.

The Warsaw Zoo's own historical account says that when Antonina saw danger approaching, she would sit down and play a particular passage, and the people in the villa knew that it meant disappear and hide and get quiet.

When it was safe, she had a different song she would play that would signal that things were safe and they could return.