The Hollow Bones implores us to pay careful attention to the crucial
lessons we might learn from our not-too-distant history.
I remember you once told me about mockingbirds and their special
talents for mimicry. They steal the songs from others, you said. I want
to ask you this: how were our own songs stolen from us, the notes
dispersed, while our faces were turned away?
Berlin, 1936. Ernst Schäfer, a young, ambitious zoologist and keen
hunter and collector, has come to the attention of Heinrich Himmler, who
invites him to lead a group of SS scientists to the frozen mountains of
Tibet. Their secret mission: to search for the origins of the Aryan
race. Ernst has doubts initially but soon seizes the opportunity to rise
through the ranks of the Third Reich.
While Ernst prepares for the trip, he marries Herta, his childhood
sweetheart. But Herta, a flautist who refuses to play from the songbook
of womanhood and marriage under the Reich, grows increasingly suspicious
of Ernst and his expedition.
When Ernst and his colleagues finally leave Germany in 1938, they
realize the world has its eyes fixed on the horror they have left behind
in their homeland.
A lyrical and poignant cautionary tale, The Hollow Bones brings to
life one of the Nazi regime's little-known villains through the eyes of
the animals he destroyed and the wife he undermined in the name of
science and cold ambition.
