A shoebill stork from the Berlin Zoo being cared for inside a private home or nurse's bathroom during World War II... Before the war, the Berlin Zoo was one of the largest in the world. It held around 4,000 birds and mammals from about 1,400 species, plus thousands more creatures in its aquarium. The war reached the zoo long before the Soviets did. During air raids in November 1943, about 30 percent of the animals were lost in less than 15 minutes. The next day, a direct hit destroyed the aquarium building. Keepers did whatever they could with what was left. Some animals were moved to other zoos, and others were taken into staff members’ homes and basements to keep them warm, fed and out of harm’s way. The final battle in the spring of 1945 was the hardest. Artillery fell on the zoo for days, and a massive concrete flak tower next door became one of the last German strongholds in the city. By the end of May 1945, only 91 of the zoo’s 3,715 animals were still alive. Among the survivors were Siam, the only one of the zoo’s eight elephants to make it through, and a young hippo named Knautschke. Knautschke became a symbol of Berlin’s recovery after the war. He lived at the zoo for decades and fathered dozens of calves, helping rebuild the zoo’s hippo family. #archaeohistories