The thing about Adolph is that the German bombings and the snowstorms have not been his only brushes with death. He also almost burned up once when someone (OK, Mr. Miller, his dad, basically) built a bonfire on top of him. He lost a piece of his shell in that encounter, but he didn’t die. And altogether, he has escaped from the Miller’s garden four or five times. This is clearly a turtle who wants to live, despite the world’s attempts to bring him down….More at Adolph the unkillable tortoise survived snowstorms, fires, and Nazis – Grist