Jan Żabiński (pronounced [ˈjan ʐabiˈɲski]) (8 April 1897 – 26 July 1974) and his wife Antonina Żabińska (née Erdman) (1908–1971) were a Polish couple from Warsaw, recognized by Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations for their heroic rescue of Jews during the Holocaust in Poland.

[1] Jan Żabiński was a zoologist and zootechnician by profession, a scientist, and organizer and director of the renowned Warsaw Zoo before and during World War II.

[6] He was employed at the Institute of Zoology and Physiology of Animals of the Warsaw University of Life Sciences (SGGW),[4] and met Antonina Erdman, his future wife there.

Among the many Jews he saved were sculptor Magdalena Gross with her husband Maurycy Paweł Fraenkel, writer Rachela Auerbach, Regina and Samuel Kenigswein with children, Eugenia Sylkes, Marceli Lewi-Łebkowski with family, Marysia Aszerówna, the Keller family, Professor Ludwik Hirszfeld as well as Leonia and Irena Tenenbaum, wife and daughter of entomologist Szymon Tenenbaum (who died in the Ghetto), as well as numerous others; most of whom survived the Holocaust and nominated him for the Righteous Award years later.

In this dangerous undertaking he was helped by his wife, Antonina, a recognized author, and their young son, Ryszard, who nourished and looked after the needs of the many distraught Jews in their care.

[10][11] In 2007, an American poet and writer Diane Ackerman published The Zookeeper's Wife, a book about the Żabiński family's wartime activities that draws upon Antonina Żabińska's diary.

[12] A war drama about the Żabiński couple based on the book by Ackerman, The Zookeeper's Wife, was filmed in 2015 and released on March 31, 2017, with American actress Jessica Chastain portraying Antonina and Belgian actor Johan Heldenbergh cast as Jan.[13]