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The Hollow Bones
Winner of the 2019 International Book Awards in Literary Fiction & Historical Fiction.
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 realise 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.
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 realise 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.
336 pages, Paperback
First published March 5, 2019
About the author
Leah Kaminsky
11 books111 followersLeah Kaminsky, is a physician and award-winning writer. Her debut novel The Waiting Room won the Voss Literary Prize and was shortlisted for the Helen Asher Award. The Hollow Bones, won the 2019 International Book Awards in both Historical Fiction & Literary Fiction Categories. Doll's Eye will be published in 2023. We’re all Going to Die has been described as ‘a joyful book about death’. She edited Writer MD and co-authored Cracking the Code. Her poetry collection, Stitching Things Together, was a finalist in the Anne Elder Award. She holds an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts.
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March 10, 2019
NEW UPDATE... many thanks to GoodReads friend, Marjorie, she just sent me a note saying that anyone who wants to purchase this book can go to Australia Amazon. She included the link in her message I received but I don’t know how to do that. ..,
I’m sure most of you can figure it out 🥰....
The book in Australia as a Kindle download is selling for $14.99.
I hope this was a little bit helpful.
It’s a terrific book and several of us are still hoping there will be a release of this book in the United States. Thanks 💕
Update.... this book is now available to purchase. I can’t recommend it enough!
Absolutely PHENOMENAL!!!
I’m blown away!!!
Review to follow soon.
UPDATE.......
“The Hollow Bones”, is a realistic nightmarish cautionary tale handled with ethical contour, precise with vivid details, INSPIRED BY TRUE EVENTS, human-animal relations, ferociously intelligent, crucial thought-provoking dialogue, and clear documented forgotten history of a forgotten villain, during Nazi regimes.
Leah Kaminsky’s sheer breath of knowledge and research is mind blowing ambitious...with some of the most beautiful prose I’ve ever read. When she writes about nature - she can give even a couch potato goosebumps.
Learning about this disturbing bizarre story doesn’t leave your thoughts easily.
It’s a significant novel – genuinely phenomenal – emotionally wrenching - mystery suspense - with indelible characters.
Wondering about the bird on the cover?
It’s a Hoopoe. They are colorful birds found across Afro-Eurasia. They are notable for their distinctive ‘crown’ feathers... and make hoooo poooo repetitive sounds.
Birds ( that fly) have Hollow Bones ...a few of the characters have hollow souls.
With past ( childhood coming of age of stories), and present narrative (Nazi power influence), - there’s a past story about the Hoopoe that’s hard to shake...
A few other hard scenes to shake - ( past & present), but the overall storytelling echoes birdsong redemptive beauty....and grotesque hard-to-understand-why-situations .....(very important to examine).....asking us, the reader, to question science, politics, nature, and humanity.
WITHOUT SPOILERS.... a little about the plot and characters:
Ernst Schäfer, a zoologist, explorer, hunter, collector, professor of ornithology specialized in rare Tibetan birds. We ‘examine’ his character from beginning to end. My stomach - heart - and mind -was magnetically hooked in thinking about Schäfer- from boyhood to adult.
Heinrich Himmler, a leading member of the Nazi party, invites Schäfer ( who had been in Tibet before - but was in Philadelphia at the time), to return to Berlin so that he could assign ( less of an invitation than an order), Schäfer back to Tibet on a secret mission in the holy area of Tibet called Lhasa. He was to be the team leader - and would have the best hand picked German scientists to join him. We get to know each member on the team, too.
The expedition in 1938 through British India to the sacred mountains of Tibet was mysterious and sinister. Under orders from Himmler, the team of scientists were to find proof of a bizarre historical fantasy, lay the groundwork for a global political and military strategy, and pinpoint the origins and remnants of the Aryan ‘master race’.
It was a frightening perverse expedition.
The real- life drama - chilling tale in “The Hollow Bones”, was chilling....starting with the most problematic character - leader of this expedition: Ernst Schäfer.
But the women who steals our heart in this story is Herta.....(Schafer’s wife). She isn’t a flashy party girl... rather a lovely country girl - a musician - beautiful flute player, lonely, homesick, suppressed by the conditions of of life.
Ok... must be honest.... there was a scene that was so SHOCKING/ *CRAZY* —- ( I’m thinking things like...”you stupid dumbass”....are you REALLY STUPID, NAIVE, BRAIN DEAD, or WHAT?).....
I HAD TO SHARE THIS PART WITH PAUL....( my husband)....and OMG....I had one of those moments (again)....
As I started sharing ( having been so absorbed in the story), coming up for air...I started to try to share about this NUTTY INSANE SCENE.....( but soooo real), that when I started to talk.... I was UNCONTROLLABLY laughing & crying at the same time. I almost couldn’t SPEAK the scene out loud.
Tell me....I’m not the only person who has had this type of experience?/!
Another bittersweet gorgeous part of this novel is the voice of dead animals .....
Here are a couple of partial samples:
“My mother would tell me stories when I was a cub of when our ancestors, white as snow, lived in the mountains. Long ago a gentle shepherd girl from the valley below would flock to graze up there....
sometimes the panda would.........” ( read the rest yourself- 🐼).
“I am a living fossil, apparently”.
A professor comes and talks to other people about the unique panda… their place in evolution and the controversy about his phylogenetic position. Pandas don’t have a umami.
He missed his shepherd and learned that he had to go back to Germany and even though he put an arrow through his heart it’s like getting another arrow and his heart with him leaving.
Many points of interest....( in no particular order):
Bride school, (Mutterchulungskurs), wives of SS soldiers, Nordic ancestors, the Olympic Games, ( 25,000 pigeons were released into the air during the opening ceremonies, The Swedish explorer- Sven Hedin, crucial facts on onanism,
extensive medical screening and intimate medical examinations before marriage,
The marriage between Ernst Schäfer and his wife Herta, The 10 commandments for choosing a spouse, weakening of defective genes, especially Jews and the mentally ill,
Margarete, ( Herta’s deaf sister), Waltershausen and growing up in this small family town, Bird Bones, tea, strudel & lebkuchen with cream, music, the flute, being outside in nature, the team of scientists: Edmund Geer, Karl Wienert, Ernst Krause, Bruno Heidelberg....
The international Hunting huge exhibition, cocky hunters ....etc. etc.
THE ENDING of this story had me in tears. The epilogue was.........( won’t say).....but gut AFFECTING!
“How can a man who held a deep reverence for nature and all its gifts at the same time be its destroyer?”
A favorite ‘aw’ moment:
“As children they made their way to a secret hide-out in the woods every day after school: any threshold of wonder, the portal in a world in which they were merely creatures among creatures. Bees hovered over wildflowers as young Ernst and Herta walked across fields where horses flicked their tails at flies and farmers called to their dogs. Jumping from rock to rock across the street in which fish were swimming like beads of quartz in porphyry, the children followed a slender path up a steep rise, walking hand-in-hand. A golden oriole sang to them, accompanied by the distant lowing of cows and chiming of church bells. Herta would sit cross-legged in the small clearing among a corpse of pines, threading berries onto a twig. Her favorite tree was a scarred old oak, grown tall in its solitude. It was the perfect listener, giving everything and asking nothing in return”.
A remarkable bold and beautiful book!
A VERY STRONG FAVORITE HISTORICAL FICTION.... quick read too....( not too long or too short- just right)
Leah’s novel broke my heart- angered me at times....made me laugh when maybe I shouldn’t have, and has left me looking at my thoughts - but not ordinary thoughts -
Great book club choice - much to stir up worthy conversations.
I can even see this novel made into a movie!
5 STRONG STARS
I’m sure most of you can figure it out 🥰....
The book in Australia as a Kindle download is selling for $14.99.
I hope this was a little bit helpful.
It’s a terrific book and several of us are still hoping there will be a release of this book in the United States. Thanks 💕
Update.... this book is now available to purchase. I can’t recommend it enough!
Absolutely PHENOMENAL!!!
I’m blown away!!!
Review to follow soon.
UPDATE.......
“The Hollow Bones”, is a realistic nightmarish cautionary tale handled with ethical contour, precise with vivid details, INSPIRED BY TRUE EVENTS, human-animal relations, ferociously intelligent, crucial thought-provoking dialogue, and clear documented forgotten history of a forgotten villain, during Nazi regimes.
Leah Kaminsky’s sheer breath of knowledge and research is mind blowing ambitious...with some of the most beautiful prose I’ve ever read. When she writes about nature - she can give even a couch potato goosebumps.
Learning about this disturbing bizarre story doesn’t leave your thoughts easily.
It’s a significant novel – genuinely phenomenal – emotionally wrenching - mystery suspense - with indelible characters.
Wondering about the bird on the cover?
It’s a Hoopoe. They are colorful birds found across Afro-Eurasia. They are notable for their distinctive ‘crown’ feathers... and make hoooo poooo repetitive sounds.
Birds ( that fly) have Hollow Bones ...a few of the characters have hollow souls.
With past ( childhood coming of age of stories), and present narrative (Nazi power influence), - there’s a past story about the Hoopoe that’s hard to shake...
A few other hard scenes to shake - ( past & present), but the overall storytelling echoes birdsong redemptive beauty....and grotesque hard-to-understand-why-situations .....(very important to examine).....asking us, the reader, to question science, politics, nature, and humanity.
WITHOUT SPOILERS.... a little about the plot and characters:
Ernst Schäfer, a zoologist, explorer, hunter, collector, professor of ornithology specialized in rare Tibetan birds. We ‘examine’ his character from beginning to end. My stomach - heart - and mind -was magnetically hooked in thinking about Schäfer- from boyhood to adult.
Heinrich Himmler, a leading member of the Nazi party, invites Schäfer ( who had been in Tibet before - but was in Philadelphia at the time), to return to Berlin so that he could assign ( less of an invitation than an order), Schäfer back to Tibet on a secret mission in the holy area of Tibet called Lhasa. He was to be the team leader - and would have the best hand picked German scientists to join him. We get to know each member on the team, too.
The expedition in 1938 through British India to the sacred mountains of Tibet was mysterious and sinister. Under orders from Himmler, the team of scientists were to find proof of a bizarre historical fantasy, lay the groundwork for a global political and military strategy, and pinpoint the origins and remnants of the Aryan ‘master race’.
It was a frightening perverse expedition.
The real- life drama - chilling tale in “The Hollow Bones”, was chilling....starting with the most problematic character - leader of this expedition: Ernst Schäfer.
But the women who steals our heart in this story is Herta.....(Schafer’s wife). She isn’t a flashy party girl... rather a lovely country girl - a musician - beautiful flute player, lonely, homesick, suppressed by the conditions of of life.
Ok... must be honest.... there was a scene that was so SHOCKING/ *CRAZY* —- ( I’m thinking things like...”you stupid dumbass”....are you REALLY STUPID, NAIVE, BRAIN DEAD, or WHAT?).....
I HAD TO SHARE THIS PART WITH PAUL....( my husband)....and OMG....I had one of those moments (again)....
As I started sharing ( having been so absorbed in the story), coming up for air...I started to try to share about this NUTTY INSANE SCENE.....( but soooo real), that when I started to talk.... I was UNCONTROLLABLY laughing & crying at the same time. I almost couldn’t SPEAK the scene out loud.
Tell me....I’m not the only person who has had this type of experience?/!
Another bittersweet gorgeous part of this novel is the voice of dead animals .....
Here are a couple of partial samples:
“My mother would tell me stories when I was a cub of when our ancestors, white as snow, lived in the mountains. Long ago a gentle shepherd girl from the valley below would flock to graze up there....
sometimes the panda would.........” ( read the rest yourself- 🐼).
“I am a living fossil, apparently”.
A professor comes and talks to other people about the unique panda… their place in evolution and the controversy about his phylogenetic position. Pandas don’t have a umami.
He missed his shepherd and learned that he had to go back to Germany and even though he put an arrow through his heart it’s like getting another arrow and his heart with him leaving.
Many points of interest....( in no particular order):
Bride school, (Mutterchulungskurs), wives of SS soldiers, Nordic ancestors, the Olympic Games, ( 25,000 pigeons were released into the air during the opening ceremonies, The Swedish explorer- Sven Hedin, crucial facts on onanism,
extensive medical screening and intimate medical examinations before marriage,
The marriage between Ernst Schäfer and his wife Herta, The 10 commandments for choosing a spouse, weakening of defective genes, especially Jews and the mentally ill,
Margarete, ( Herta’s deaf sister), Waltershausen and growing up in this small family town, Bird Bones, tea, strudel & lebkuchen with cream, music, the flute, being outside in nature, the team of scientists: Edmund Geer, Karl Wienert, Ernst Krause, Bruno Heidelberg....
The international Hunting huge exhibition, cocky hunters ....etc. etc.
THE ENDING of this story had me in tears. The epilogue was.........( won’t say).....but gut AFFECTING!
“How can a man who held a deep reverence for nature and all its gifts at the same time be its destroyer?”
A favorite ‘aw’ moment:
“As children they made their way to a secret hide-out in the woods every day after school: any threshold of wonder, the portal in a world in which they were merely creatures among creatures. Bees hovered over wildflowers as young Ernst and Herta walked across fields where horses flicked their tails at flies and farmers called to their dogs. Jumping from rock to rock across the street in which fish were swimming like beads of quartz in porphyry, the children followed a slender path up a steep rise, walking hand-in-hand. A golden oriole sang to them, accompanied by the distant lowing of cows and chiming of church bells. Herta would sit cross-legged in the small clearing among a corpse of pines, threading berries onto a twig. Her favorite tree was a scarred old oak, grown tall in its solitude. It was the perfect listener, giving everything and asking nothing in return”.
A remarkable bold and beautiful book!
A VERY STRONG FAVORITE HISTORICAL FICTION.... quick read too....( not too long or too short- just right)
Leah’s novel broke my heart- angered me at times....made me laugh when maybe I shouldn’t have, and has left me looking at my thoughts - but not ordinary thoughts -
Great book club choice - much to stir up worthy conversations.
I can even see this novel made into a movie!
5 STRONG STARS
June 15, 2023
Part of him ached to escape from trying to be a perfect husband, a studious scientist, a spotless officer of the Reich. Tibet, like a sultry mistress, waited in the background, beckoning him irrevocably towards her seductive terrain.========================================
They were each so different and yet the same. He had carved out who he was in nature, whereas she preferred to disappear in its folds, melting into its beauty.The Hollow Bones is a tale of love, ambition, passion, madness, and carnage. It begins with the love story.
Remember that kid you had a crush on way back when? Every fiber of you wanted to be with that kid, without at all knowing what that really meant. You were sympatico, though your interests might have been different. He or she was kind, caring, had your back. You were friends, without the benefits that are reserved for later in life. But that childhood soul mate is sent away as a young teen and it is years before you see each other again. Then, the day arrives. You are both in your twenties. Your bestie is now a big deal scientist, a published author, an explorer. And you project onto him/her all the feelings and perceptions that you preserved from your childhood friendship. And so it is when Herta Volz, enrolled in a Berlin conservatory, mastering the flute, re-meets Ernst Schäfer, a Some Enchanted Evening moment, but without, you know, actually being strangers.
Ernst Schäfer - Image from ABC Australia
Ernst, a zoologist, has done quite well for himself. He has been working on his PhD at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, busy exploring the world, particularly the Himalayas, for his study of birds. But he is summoned by Himmler himself back to Berlin to take on a special project. It is during the months leading up to Ernst’s project launch that these two lovebirds rekindle their affections and
Leah Kaminsky - image from her FB pages
World War II is the war that keeps on giving. And just when you think you have seen, read, or heard about everything that went on during that particularly grim time, along comes another story, based on little known facts. This book had its genesis when Kaminsky became aware of the historical Ernst Schäfer while on a book tour in the USA. The Academy of Natural Sciences held a trove of materials brought to it by a German ornithologist, Schäfer. As reflected in the novel, Schäfer was called back from his doctoral work in the US by Himmler, to lead an expedition to Tibet. It gets a bit weird here. Himmler was a proponent of the World Ice Theory, an alternative Theory of Everything favored by Nazis, as the actual science of relativity and diverse other grand understandings were developed by Jews, and they could not abide that. In addition to seeing ice underlying everything, this particular form of insanity entails a strained movement of ancient residents of Atlantis to Tibet (don’t ask), then the Atlanteans mating with Tibetans to create the original Aryans. The secret mission that Schäfer led was to find evidence of the ancient Aryans, to support the Third Reich’s fantasies about a pure Aryan race. In the novel, and presumably in reality as well, Schäfer rolls his eyes but takes Himmler’s money and leads the expedition to learn all he could about the fauna of the Himalayas. Others on the mission were charged with research more closely attuned to the Reich’s real intentions.
This is a photo from the 1938 German Tibet expedition in which Ernst Schäfer is paying court to Tibetan dignitaries to try and curry favour so they will allow him to enter the holy city of Lhasa, which was off limits to foreigners back then. He has hung flags of the SS insignia and the swastika, telling his visitors that ‘East and West meet in the swastika’. - image from ElizabethStorrs.com
The narrative alternates, mostly, between Herta and Ernst, and between their contemporary experience and recollections from their childhood in Waltershausen, a small town in central Germany. We get to see how poorly Ernst was treated by his family, and there is a suggestion of something far from kosher at the boarding school to which he is sent. We see how he impresses with acts of courage and caring, get that he is smitten with nature, but also see his fondness for killing it as well. There is a third voice here, but we will get to that later.
What would you give to be able to pursue your dreams? Maybe take on an absurd project in order to finance your real scientific research? In order to get the Himalaya gig, Ernst has to sign up with the SS. In fact, all the people heading out on this mission are SS members. It is particularly fitting that the real Ernst toted with him a copy of Goethe’s Faust, as he makes a dark bargain to join science to politics, despite knowing that the politics-based science he is supposed to be researching is drivel. It would be like a field researcher accepting a grant from the Koch Brothers to disprove global warming in order to get the cash he needs to do real work on, say, a threatened species of owl. Is Ernst a scientist or a villain, a researcher or a bringer of a zoological holocaust? Did he sell his soul, or was it dark from an early age? What is clear is that Ernst, in order to provide specimens to western institutions, slaughtered vast numbers of creatures, mammalian and avian. The ravishing of the natural world is a significant theme in the book, (mirroring the Nazi slaughter of millions of people) including a scene in which high-ranking Nazis glory in their hunting prowess, which brings us to that third voice.
This four-month old panda is intended to be a cry from the wild about the dark side of taxidermy and museums - image from the author’s FB pages
There are several chapters in the book that are dictated by a young panda Ernst had killed in the Himalayas and brought back to the museum in Philadelphia. I expect this is supposed to represent the voice of all the creatures Ernst killed. For a creature taken from its world so it could be put on display, it is remarkably forgiving, as it holds Ernst in high regard, while describing the goings on in the museum. These are charming interludes, but I felt it was a step too far into the realm of fantasy. However, there are other elements of fantastical stretching in the book that worked wonderfully. In one, Ernst sees a creature known as a shapi. It is an albino of the species East Himalayan tahr, (the real Ernst was the first westerner to see this species) and he stalks it relentlessly. The episode is told in a dream-like manner that befits a creature held in almost religious awe by the locals, with a wake-up-suddenly climax that is wonderfully fitting. There is one delicious scene in which Ernst gets to experience the hunt from the other side. In a similar vein, Herta has a very intimate relationship with her surroundings. In one particularly lyrical scene she imagines herself with angel wings. Several dream sequences add another layer of fantasy to the story.
In addition to the strangeness of the Nazis’ World Ice Theory and Aryan fantasies, there are other elements of the time that are of interest. One is Kaminsky’s portrayal of Berlin during the excitement generated by the Olympics, the revels, the events, and the removal of blatantly anti-semitic messaging while so many foreigners were in town. Another is the existence of Reich Bride Schools, in which prospective wives of Nazi officers underwent training in cooking, child care, and the proper care of their husband’s uniforms and daggers. Women were supposed to remain at home, and ideally, function as brood-mares, with special awards given to women who had the most babies. Herta is subjected to this ridiculousness while engaged to Ernst. Pursuing a career as a musician, or pretty much anything else, was forbidden. They also were subjected to propaganda about race and genetics, and had to pass a screening procedure before they would even be allowed to marry SS officers. I had no idea such things existed.
There is much writing in The Hollow Bones that takes wing. The central image of the book is birds. I expect there is not a page in which there is no mention of birds, feathers, or some avian-related term. For a story about an ornithologist and a woman who yearns to fly, this seemed particularly fitting.
Seated in an armchair, she drifted off. In her swirl of dreams, she and Ernst were two birds caught in a trap. An old farmer trudged through snow to release them. They stretched their wings and soared together, high above fields covered with the dead. She tried to warn Ernst it was dangerous to fly with his eyes closed, but all that emerged from her beak was the language of song. Ignoring her doleful cries, Ernst swooped down to fight with wild beasts, returning to her not long after with his heart gouged out. She tried to stop the bleeding with her feathers. Hands sprouted from the tips of her wings as she reached out to him. His was a love so hard to embrace. She lifted him onto her back and carried him away, flying to the top of a distant tree. She would be his eyes.Leah Kaminsky is ours. She sees so much, and so well. The Hollow Bones soars on wings nicely feathered with new information about a dark time, a moving love story, effective imagery, a hawkish look at some elements of science, a lyrical, poetic voice, and a taste for the killer twist. Check it out.
Review posted – June 14, 2019
Publication date – March 5, 2019 – (Australia)
The author sent me a pdf of this book in return for something more than a bird-brained consideration. There was no agreement however, about painful wordplay.
Given the pervasive use of avian imagery, one might be tempted to say this was a tale of boy meets gull. I wouldn’t, but some might. (All right, go ahead, hiss. I deserve that.) What about… Hoopoe is a thing with feathers? (Hey, no throwing things, ok. Geez, stop, that hurt.)
=============================EXTRA STUFF
Links to the author’s personal, Twitter and FB pages
Interviews
-----Radio National (ABC Australia) The Hollow Bones: the weird world of Nazi 'science' meets mysticism on the road to Tibet - by Natasha Mitchell
----Elisabeth Storrs - On Inspiration: Interview with Leah Kaminsky
By Leah
-----An extract from the book - Prologue and Chapter 1
-----Women Writers, Women’s Books - The Hollow Bones
When I was on book tour in the US with my first novel, I visited their library archives and found a trove of material – letters, photographs and field diaries – which Schäfer had left behind. It was then that the librarian introduced me to the curator, and I was fortunate enough to be shown the range of specimens Ernst Schäfer had brought back from his forays in the Far East. That was when I came face to face with a four-month-old panda the German scientist had shot and brought back from the Kham Forests of Tibet. This creature insisted on becoming a plaintiff call from the wild in my story.
Items of Interest
-----Reich Bride Schools
-----Ahnenerbe
-----On the Shapi, or Himalayan tahr, discovered by the real Ernst Schäfer
----- Radio National (ABC Australia) The Bookshelf by Kate Evans and Cassie McCullough - from 1:40 – to 10:30
-----Faust
-----Some Enchanted Evening - the movie version
August 18, 2019
”I want to forget the darkness and remember only the good; illusion is such a temptress. It won’t be long before we will both float weightlessly, unmoored, our bones hollow like the birds’. 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?”
SS-Sturmbannführer Ernst Schäfer is a man of destiny. He is determined to be a man who leaves his mark on history. Failure is not an option and anything or anyone who keeps him from achieving his goals will have to be eliminated. His wife Herta Volz is a childhood sweetheart who will always see Ernst as a sweet boy, even as he grows into a demanding man filled with rage and brainwashed by the Nazi belief in the Superman.
He is a hunter even more so than he is a scientist. He can see the beauty in the flight of a bird, but at the same time he knows, godlike, that he can bring that beauty crashing to earth. He decides if that bird lives or dies, and he revels in it. Ernst wants nothing more than to go back to Tibet to be seduced once more by the wild beauty, but also to bend it to his own design. As Herta points out to him. ”’You will never be able to see the real Tibet, Ernst. You are too busy dissecting it.’”
His ticket to get back to Tibet rests in the office of Heinrich Himmler, and fortunately Himmler sees Ernst as a perfect specimen of Germanic stock. His beautiful wife Herta, though resisting all of this in private, has been a model of what a Nazi wife should be. She even goes to a Nazi bride camp for wives where they are taught what is expected of them...submission.
Polish his boots, clean his rife, submit to his desires, bear his children, and be the rock behind his efforts to help the Third Reich rule for a thousand years.
The interesting thing is Herta, sweet flute playing Herta, convinces me that Ernst is salvageable, that he would not be the way he is if not for the influence of the Nazi regime. She understands he can not achieve his goals without being a fervent member of the Nazi party, and she believes that when the day comes, when all this madness is stopped, that he will prove to be the man she sees in the boy.
Maybe going to Tibet will set him right, will bring back the honorable aspects she wishes to see in him. ”Part of him ached to escape from trying to be a perfect husband, a studious scientist, a spotless officer of the Reich. Tibet, like a sultry mistress, waited in the background, beckoning him irrevocably towards her seductive terrain.” Is that just a man wanting to shrug off the responsibilities of his life, or is he wanting to move beyond a persona that has been superimposed upon him by everyone perceiving him to be so much more than what he is really capable of being?
Himmler, of course, has an agenda for backing Ernst’s trip to Tibet. It can’t possibly be just for the sake of science. He wants him to find traces of Aryan influences in the Tibetan people to support the story that Germans once lived there. Bring out the calipers to measure their skulls and lips. Bring out the eye color chart to see if there are any traces of Aryanism among the natives. Weigh and measure and find wanting.
You can’t find two people more different than Ernst and Herta. Maybe if they hadn’t been living in the wrong age, they would have had completely different lives. She would have softened him, and he would have strengthened her. Maybe if the world was not on fire and men are not rewarded with Death’s Head Rings for special service, then quite possibly they both would have had the opportunity to be the best versions of themselves. ”He had carved out who he was in nature, whereas she preferred to disappear in its folds, melting into its beauty.” I want to think, in a different time, that Herta would have lovingly taken Ernst’s rifle from his hands and replaced it with a pair of binoculars, and that he would have encouraged her to pursue her music.
This novel is based upon true events. Ernst and Herta Schäfer did really exist, and their story is a compelling one, brought vividly to life by Leah Kaminsky. This is the best kind of historical fiction made more real than nonfiction. It is quirky and bold with splashes of spicy history and sweet music.
I’m not a birder, certainly not a lister, though Jonathan Franzen in his recent collection of essays does his bloody best to turn me into one. I will say the hoopoe bird on the cover of this book is certainly one of the loveliest birds on the planet. Birds figure strongly in this book, and both Ernst and Herta see the beauty in them, but Herta wants to join them flying above the earth, while Ernst wants to bring them crashing to earth to become a dead eyed curiosity on a shelf. The conclusion rocked me back in my seat. I had to backtrack a few pages and read forward again...thinking to myself...did I miss something? My goodness, I did not see that coming.
Yes, the unthinkable does happen. It was the age when unthinkable things happened to many people. Most people survived, but not without bearing the wounds of their near demise.
I want to thank Leah Kaminsky, who made the extra effort to send me a copy of her book from Down Under in exchange for an honest review. I want to thank my friend, Elyse Walters, who so adamantly brought this book to my attention.
If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com
I also have a Facebook blogger page at:https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten
SS-Sturmbannführer Ernst Schäfer is a man of destiny. He is determined to be a man who leaves his mark on history. Failure is not an option and anything or anyone who keeps him from achieving his goals will have to be eliminated. His wife Herta Volz is a childhood sweetheart who will always see Ernst as a sweet boy, even as he grows into a demanding man filled with rage and brainwashed by the Nazi belief in the Superman.
He is a hunter even more so than he is a scientist. He can see the beauty in the flight of a bird, but at the same time he knows, godlike, that he can bring that beauty crashing to earth. He decides if that bird lives or dies, and he revels in it. Ernst wants nothing more than to go back to Tibet to be seduced once more by the wild beauty, but also to bend it to his own design. As Herta points out to him. ”’You will never be able to see the real Tibet, Ernst. You are too busy dissecting it.’”
His ticket to get back to Tibet rests in the office of Heinrich Himmler, and fortunately Himmler sees Ernst as a perfect specimen of Germanic stock. His beautiful wife Herta, though resisting all of this in private, has been a model of what a Nazi wife should be. She even goes to a Nazi bride camp for wives where they are taught what is expected of them...submission.
Polish his boots, clean his rife, submit to his desires, bear his children, and be the rock behind his efforts to help the Third Reich rule for a thousand years.
The interesting thing is Herta, sweet flute playing Herta, convinces me that Ernst is salvageable, that he would not be the way he is if not for the influence of the Nazi regime. She understands he can not achieve his goals without being a fervent member of the Nazi party, and she believes that when the day comes, when all this madness is stopped, that he will prove to be the man she sees in the boy.
Maybe going to Tibet will set him right, will bring back the honorable aspects she wishes to see in him. ”Part of him ached to escape from trying to be a perfect husband, a studious scientist, a spotless officer of the Reich. Tibet, like a sultry mistress, waited in the background, beckoning him irrevocably towards her seductive terrain.” Is that just a man wanting to shrug off the responsibilities of his life, or is he wanting to move beyond a persona that has been superimposed upon him by everyone perceiving him to be so much more than what he is really capable of being?
Himmler, of course, has an agenda for backing Ernst’s trip to Tibet. It can’t possibly be just for the sake of science. He wants him to find traces of Aryan influences in the Tibetan people to support the story that Germans once lived there. Bring out the calipers to measure their skulls and lips. Bring out the eye color chart to see if there are any traces of Aryanism among the natives. Weigh and measure and find wanting.
You can’t find two people more different than Ernst and Herta. Maybe if they hadn’t been living in the wrong age, they would have had completely different lives. She would have softened him, and he would have strengthened her. Maybe if the world was not on fire and men are not rewarded with Death’s Head Rings for special service, then quite possibly they both would have had the opportunity to be the best versions of themselves. ”He had carved out who he was in nature, whereas she preferred to disappear in its folds, melting into its beauty.” I want to think, in a different time, that Herta would have lovingly taken Ernst’s rifle from his hands and replaced it with a pair of binoculars, and that he would have encouraged her to pursue her music.
This novel is based upon true events. Ernst and Herta Schäfer did really exist, and their story is a compelling one, brought vividly to life by Leah Kaminsky. This is the best kind of historical fiction made more real than nonfiction. It is quirky and bold with splashes of spicy history and sweet music.
I’m not a birder, certainly not a lister, though Jonathan Franzen in his recent collection of essays does his bloody best to turn me into one. I will say the hoopoe bird on the cover of this book is certainly one of the loveliest birds on the planet. Birds figure strongly in this book, and both Ernst and Herta see the beauty in them, but Herta wants to join them flying above the earth, while Ernst wants to bring them crashing to earth to become a dead eyed curiosity on a shelf. The conclusion rocked me back in my seat. I had to backtrack a few pages and read forward again...thinking to myself...did I miss something? My goodness, I did not see that coming.
Yes, the unthinkable does happen. It was the age when unthinkable things happened to many people. Most people survived, but not without bearing the wounds of their near demise.
I want to thank Leah Kaminsky, who made the extra effort to send me a copy of her book from Down Under in exchange for an honest review. I want to thank my friend, Elyse Walters, who so adamantly brought this book to my attention.
If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com
I also have a Facebook blogger page at:https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten
June 3, 2019
The Hollow Bones is the fictionalized tale of Ernst Schäfer, an ambitions zoologist, renowned ornithologist explorer, hunter and scientist. Based on true events, this book examines his career, his relationship and Marriage to his wife, Herta, and how he gains the attention of Heinrich Himmler. In the 1930's he joins Himmler's SS for specimen collecting opportunities in Tibet. Himmler, a believer in the world ice theory, admires Schäfer and his accomplishments. The trip to Tibet is interesting, heartbreaking (the killing of a panda encased in glass in Philadelphia- who tells its own tale) and explores one man's obsession/quest/drive for scientific research fueled by his need for knowledge, power, arrogance and drive.
The book is just not about Ernst. The book is also about his wife, Herta, who was his childhood friend and grows to love him as an adult. She is a kind sweet woman with an affinity for music. She was the bright light in this novel. She must learn how to be a good Nazi wife even if she does not agree with their all of their propaganda. She must not only learn the rules; she must follow them and live them. She gives up a lot to be his wife and watches as her husband changes. She still sees the good in him even as the reader watches as he changes page by page.
‘Watching him speak so animatedly to his fellow hunters, she saw a side of her husband she would never be able to reconcile with her childhood image of him. How could a man who held such a deep reverence for nature and all its gifts at the same time be its destroyer?’
The book is told through Herta, Ernest's and even the Panda's POV. He killed a lot of animals and their stories are told as well. It is evident that a lot of research went into the writing of this novel. The writing is solid, and the plot is thought provoking. This would make a good book club selection as there is much to discuss here. What would have happened to this couple if they lived in a different time? What would have happened had Ernst Schäfer not become involved with the SS? Would he have treated his wife differently? Would he have encouraged her music?
War changes people, power changes people, feeling invincible changes people. Feeling as if nothing can touch you or stop you changes people. Having things taken from people changes them, giving up on your dream’s changes people.
Ernst Schäfer lived to be 82 years old. He escaped justice as many Nazi's did. exonerated in 1949 of any crimes. He claimed he joined the SS for scientific reasons and went on to have a career when so many were robbed of theirs during the Holocaust.
This is a book which I will be thinking about for days to come. It is one that I will most likely read again as I read this one very slowly. I feel as if I need to read this book again to absorb even more of it. Historical fiction fans, those interest in the War, Holocaust, etc. will be riveted by this tale.
I received a copy of this book from the Author in exchange for an honest review. The thoughts and opinions are my own.
The book is just not about Ernst. The book is also about his wife, Herta, who was his childhood friend and grows to love him as an adult. She is a kind sweet woman with an affinity for music. She was the bright light in this novel. She must learn how to be a good Nazi wife even if she does not agree with their all of their propaganda. She must not only learn the rules; she must follow them and live them. She gives up a lot to be his wife and watches as her husband changes. She still sees the good in him even as the reader watches as he changes page by page.
‘Watching him speak so animatedly to his fellow hunters, she saw a side of her husband she would never be able to reconcile with her childhood image of him. How could a man who held such a deep reverence for nature and all its gifts at the same time be its destroyer?’
The book is told through Herta, Ernest's and even the Panda's POV. He killed a lot of animals and their stories are told as well. It is evident that a lot of research went into the writing of this novel. The writing is solid, and the plot is thought provoking. This would make a good book club selection as there is much to discuss here. What would have happened to this couple if they lived in a different time? What would have happened had Ernst Schäfer not become involved with the SS? Would he have treated his wife differently? Would he have encouraged her music?
War changes people, power changes people, feeling invincible changes people. Feeling as if nothing can touch you or stop you changes people. Having things taken from people changes them, giving up on your dream’s changes people.
Ernst Schäfer lived to be 82 years old. He escaped justice as many Nazi's did. exonerated in 1949 of any crimes. He claimed he joined the SS for scientific reasons and went on to have a career when so many were robbed of theirs during the Holocaust.
This is a book which I will be thinking about for days to come. It is one that I will most likely read again as I read this one very slowly. I feel as if I need to read this book again to absorb even more of it. Historical fiction fans, those interest in the War, Holocaust, etc. will be riveted by this tale.
I received a copy of this book from the Author in exchange for an honest review. The thoughts and opinions are my own.
July 24, 2019
This was a 4 ½ rounded down to a 4 because I thought the flow was at times disjointed, but that in no way detracts from my admiration for this author and the work and heart that she put into this book. I also found the ending to be somewhat abrupt.
It has been about a week since I finished reading this book and I’m still having problems summarizing the novel. I have read many, many books about WWII and all of Hitler’s atrocities but have never heard the name of the Ernst Shafer. He was a hunter, collector and zoologist specializing in ornithology.
As the novel begins we are introduced to Ernst and his childhood friend and then wife Herta, who, throughout the novel notices how much Ernst changes. When they were young they would often go on adventures in nature and he would show her bird’s feathers and pointed out various animals and vegetation. As he got older he became obsessed with his hunting and collecting. “Why can’t you just be proud of me, Herta?” “ Proud of what exactly? She brushed him off. I can’t admire the violent deaths of your precious birds”.
Ernst is already well known when Heinrich Himmler appoints him to head up an expedition to Tibet. He is convinced that it is here that they will find a link to the pure Aryan race that the Germans are convinced are above all other humans. Ernst is more interested in all of the “specimens” that he will be able to collect on this long, extensive expedition, he doesn’t really care why it is being funded. Throughout the novel we don’t really hear about what is being learned about the Aryan race’s origins, but only about what Ernst is hunting and collecting.
The group does manage to gain entry into Tibet and it is around this time that the world is erupting into WWII. Their extended trip is cut short and they are lucky to return to Germany and avoid capture by the Allies, and with all of their “specimens” intact.
I found some of the story confusing as we are hearing the story from both Herta and Ernst’s POV’s. At time we also jump back and forth in time.
There is a third POV and that is from a juvenile panda whom Ernst had shot and brought back as a trophy for the museum. It was this story, although fictitious and somewhat dreamlike, that added even more sadness to an already emotionally highly charged story. “Some days my mind wanders back to Wild, to the mists of the forest with it’s gnarled, moss covered tree roots . . . the smell of freshly cut bamboo and the singing of distant villagers who knew well enough to leave us alone.” “My mother would tell me stories when I was a cub of when our ancestors lived high up in the mountains”. Panda’s story added another dimension to the novel, I began to wonder at what price to nature do we fill our museums with specimens from the wild? It was definitely thought provoking.
There is a lot of information in this book, well researched and ending with an Afterword which describes what happened to many of the SS officers noted in the novel. “After his return to Germany from Tibet, Himmler sent Ernst to film medical experiments on inmates at Dachau concentration camp”. Upon his internment in Nuremberg he managed to convince his interrogators that he was manipulated by Himmler and was working only as a scientist. He was fined but then released to serve as curator of the Department of Natural History from 1960 to 1970, he lived to age 82 in Germany. It was incredibly disturbing, infuriating really, to read about the number of Nazi’s who had committed terrible crimes who went unpunished, able to live out their lives after they had taken the lives of so many others.
I felt fortunate to be able to read this novel and know that I will be thinking about the messages being told here for a long while. I highly recommend this to all lovers of historical fiction. This novel is available on Amazon Australia.
It has been about a week since I finished reading this book and I’m still having problems summarizing the novel. I have read many, many books about WWII and all of Hitler’s atrocities but have never heard the name of the Ernst Shafer. He was a hunter, collector and zoologist specializing in ornithology.
As the novel begins we are introduced to Ernst and his childhood friend and then wife Herta, who, throughout the novel notices how much Ernst changes. When they were young they would often go on adventures in nature and he would show her bird’s feathers and pointed out various animals and vegetation. As he got older he became obsessed with his hunting and collecting. “Why can’t you just be proud of me, Herta?” “ Proud of what exactly? She brushed him off. I can’t admire the violent deaths of your precious birds”.
Ernst is already well known when Heinrich Himmler appoints him to head up an expedition to Tibet. He is convinced that it is here that they will find a link to the pure Aryan race that the Germans are convinced are above all other humans. Ernst is more interested in all of the “specimens” that he will be able to collect on this long, extensive expedition, he doesn’t really care why it is being funded. Throughout the novel we don’t really hear about what is being learned about the Aryan race’s origins, but only about what Ernst is hunting and collecting.
The group does manage to gain entry into Tibet and it is around this time that the world is erupting into WWII. Their extended trip is cut short and they are lucky to return to Germany and avoid capture by the Allies, and with all of their “specimens” intact.
I found some of the story confusing as we are hearing the story from both Herta and Ernst’s POV’s. At time we also jump back and forth in time.
There is a third POV and that is from a juvenile panda whom Ernst had shot and brought back as a trophy for the museum. It was this story, although fictitious and somewhat dreamlike, that added even more sadness to an already emotionally highly charged story. “Some days my mind wanders back to Wild, to the mists of the forest with it’s gnarled, moss covered tree roots . . . the smell of freshly cut bamboo and the singing of distant villagers who knew well enough to leave us alone.” “My mother would tell me stories when I was a cub of when our ancestors lived high up in the mountains”. Panda’s story added another dimension to the novel, I began to wonder at what price to nature do we fill our museums with specimens from the wild? It was definitely thought provoking.
There is a lot of information in this book, well researched and ending with an Afterword which describes what happened to many of the SS officers noted in the novel. “After his return to Germany from Tibet, Himmler sent Ernst to film medical experiments on inmates at Dachau concentration camp”. Upon his internment in Nuremberg he managed to convince his interrogators that he was manipulated by Himmler and was working only as a scientist. He was fined but then released to serve as curator of the Department of Natural History from 1960 to 1970, he lived to age 82 in Germany. It was incredibly disturbing, infuriating really, to read about the number of Nazi’s who had committed terrible crimes who went unpunished, able to live out their lives after they had taken the lives of so many others.
I felt fortunate to be able to read this novel and know that I will be thinking about the messages being told here for a long while. I highly recommend this to all lovers of historical fiction. This novel is available on Amazon Australia.
July 17, 2019
3.5 stars. A richly layered wartime story.
Berlin, 1938. Ernst Schafer is an aspiring zoologist determined to make a name for himself. His supportive young wife, Herta, accepts the long hours Ernst spends working in his office or away on adventurous expeditions. Heinrich Himmler approaches Ernst to lead a group of SS scientists on an journey to Tibet funded by the Nazi’s. The Nazi’s have their own agenda while on the expedition, while Ernst sees it as an opportunity to further his travels and expertise. Herta has her concerns, but shows support for her husband.
I loved the chapters that explored Ernst and Herta’s relationship, taking them from childhood into marriage. It was such a unique relationship with Herta as the supportive nurturer who understands her husband like no one else does. I was fascinated by their dynamic - watching their bond evolve was my favourite part of the novel.
While I did find the expedition chapters lengthy, they were unique and informative. I have never read anything like this before. Ernst’s thirst and determination to discover and analyze new species was interesting to experience. His love of nature and hunger to advance his career was palpable. I warn that this could be a difficult book to read for animal lovers, however, the scenes were handled gently and respectfully.
The writing was excellent. I look forward to reading more from this author. I was surprised to find that this novel is based on real people and events. It is a piece of history I knew nothing about which is the main reason I enjoy reading historical fiction. I recommend this to all historical fiction lovers.
Thank you to Leah Kaminsky for providing me with a copy to read and review!
Berlin, 1938. Ernst Schafer is an aspiring zoologist determined to make a name for himself. His supportive young wife, Herta, accepts the long hours Ernst spends working in his office or away on adventurous expeditions. Heinrich Himmler approaches Ernst to lead a group of SS scientists on an journey to Tibet funded by the Nazi’s. The Nazi’s have their own agenda while on the expedition, while Ernst sees it as an opportunity to further his travels and expertise. Herta has her concerns, but shows support for her husband.
I loved the chapters that explored Ernst and Herta’s relationship, taking them from childhood into marriage. It was such a unique relationship with Herta as the supportive nurturer who understands her husband like no one else does. I was fascinated by their dynamic - watching their bond evolve was my favourite part of the novel.
While I did find the expedition chapters lengthy, they were unique and informative. I have never read anything like this before. Ernst’s thirst and determination to discover and analyze new species was interesting to experience. His love of nature and hunger to advance his career was palpable. I warn that this could be a difficult book to read for animal lovers, however, the scenes were handled gently and respectfully.
The writing was excellent. I look forward to reading more from this author. I was surprised to find that this novel is based on real people and events. It is a piece of history I knew nothing about which is the main reason I enjoy reading historical fiction. I recommend this to all historical fiction lovers.
Thank you to Leah Kaminsky for providing me with a copy to read and review!
April 1, 2019
It is always shocking and amazing how many people escaped punishment for their vile and heinous crimes during World War 2. In both the Nazi movement and that of the Japanese empire, there were many allowed to go unpunished, some with just a slight slap on their wrist who then went out and were able to lead normal lives. Sometimes, it was luck, a clandestine escape, but on most occasions sadly, there were political motivations. The bottom line was these people were able to lead their lives while those they exterminated, harmed, and persecuted did not.
"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?"
In the book The Hollow Bones, Leah Kaminsky introduces the reader to Ernst Schaefer, a zoologist, whose main point of study was birds. Ernst caught the attention of Heinrich Himmler. Thrilled with the recognition and being a zealous man, Ernst gladly joins the SS and is soon scheduled to lead an expedition to Tibet. It is fairly well know that the Nazi leaders particularly Himmler, were fixated on the occult and the origins of the Aryan race, convinced that their roots might have been in Tibet.
Leaving the rising tensions at home, as well as a new wife, Herta, Ernst and company head out on their mission. The world was due to explode shortly, and as Ernst and his cohorts try to find a way into Tibet, tensions around the world become incensed and war is started.
In the story, the author tells of Ernst and his cruelty and lack of a moral code. The story is cleverly told through the eyes of the animals he has killed. Even in his youth, in his zeal for research, we see what many would consider psychopathic behavior in Ernst. His wife, Herta, also gives us a portrait of a man who was self centered and narcissistic. He certainly possessed all the attributes that one needed to be a successful member of Himmler's SS.
Chilling and shocking, this book alerts us to the fact that Ernst was not the only man who managed to escape justice. He went on to to live his life, while those he destroyed were denied theirs.
Thank you to Leah Kaminsky, Penguin Random House and Elyse Walthers for bringing this book to my attention.
My review can also be seen here: http://yayareadslotsofbooks.wordpress...
"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?"
In the book The Hollow Bones, Leah Kaminsky introduces the reader to Ernst Schaefer, a zoologist, whose main point of study was birds. Ernst caught the attention of Heinrich Himmler. Thrilled with the recognition and being a zealous man, Ernst gladly joins the SS and is soon scheduled to lead an expedition to Tibet. It is fairly well know that the Nazi leaders particularly Himmler, were fixated on the occult and the origins of the Aryan race, convinced that their roots might have been in Tibet.
Leaving the rising tensions at home, as well as a new wife, Herta, Ernst and company head out on their mission. The world was due to explode shortly, and as Ernst and his cohorts try to find a way into Tibet, tensions around the world become incensed and war is started.
In the story, the author tells of Ernst and his cruelty and lack of a moral code. The story is cleverly told through the eyes of the animals he has killed. Even in his youth, in his zeal for research, we see what many would consider psychopathic behavior in Ernst. His wife, Herta, also gives us a portrait of a man who was self centered and narcissistic. He certainly possessed all the attributes that one needed to be a successful member of Himmler's SS.
Chilling and shocking, this book alerts us to the fact that Ernst was not the only man who managed to escape justice. He went on to to live his life, while those he destroyed were denied theirs.
Thank you to Leah Kaminsky, Penguin Random House and Elyse Walthers for bringing this book to my attention.
My review can also be seen here: http://yayareadslotsofbooks.wordpress...
November 26, 2020
Journey
The Hollow Bones is a fictional novel drawing on historical events around World War II and in particular the life of Ernst Schäfer, a German zoologist, renowned ornithologist, hunter and scientist. The story touches on Himmler and his fascination with specimens that result in an exhibition to Tibet - a trip they were fortunate to return from with their collection intact. Ernst's wife Herta provides an intriguing and more peaceful context, than the horrors Ernst encounters but fails to acknowledge in full. A young Panda, shot by Ernst, provides a narrative perspective that I didn't feel worked well with the main story - a bit distracting.
At times engaging, at times disjointed, at times fascinating and at times uninteresting. A real mixed bag with some of the storylines feeling unnecessary and some gripping. Maybe fewer themes and perspectives would have produced a great entertaining novel. The relationship between Ernst and Herta works well and should have been THE story.
Many thanks to Elyse for making me aware of this book and to Leah Kaminsky for providing me with a free copy in return for an honest review. I would rate this one 3.5 stars but rounding up to 4.
The Hollow Bones is a fictional novel drawing on historical events around World War II and in particular the life of Ernst Schäfer, a German zoologist, renowned ornithologist, hunter and scientist. The story touches on Himmler and his fascination with specimens that result in an exhibition to Tibet - a trip they were fortunate to return from with their collection intact. Ernst's wife Herta provides an intriguing and more peaceful context, than the horrors Ernst encounters but fails to acknowledge in full. A young Panda, shot by Ernst, provides a narrative perspective that I didn't feel worked well with the main story - a bit distracting.
At times engaging, at times disjointed, at times fascinating and at times uninteresting. A real mixed bag with some of the storylines feeling unnecessary and some gripping. Maybe fewer themes and perspectives would have produced a great entertaining novel. The relationship between Ernst and Herta works well and should have been THE story.
Many thanks to Elyse for making me aware of this book and to Leah Kaminsky for providing me with a free copy in return for an honest review. I would rate this one 3.5 stars but rounding up to 4.
September 18, 2022
Autoarea Leah Kaminsky reușește să capteze atenția cititorului și să îl mențină captiv în poveste pe măsură ce aceasta își urmează cursul.
Ne oferă o călătorie printre complicatele ideologii ale fuhrerului, printre ceea ce se petrecea la acea vreme în context socio-politic, printre propriile opinii ale tânărului ofițer SS trimis în misiune.
Asemeni unui pictor care creionează cu mare atenție detaliile unui chip transpus pe pânză, Leah Kaminsky oferă cititorului o scenă unde actorii sunt personajele care încearcă să-și domine propriile emoții și să-și joace rolurile.
Recenzia mea completă o găsiți aici:
https://www.delicateseliterare.ro/fii...
Ne oferă o călătorie printre complicatele ideologii ale fuhrerului, printre ceea ce se petrecea la acea vreme în context socio-politic, printre propriile opinii ale tânărului ofițer SS trimis în misiune.
Asemeni unui pictor care creionează cu mare atenție detaliile unui chip transpus pe pânză, Leah Kaminsky oferă cititorului o scenă unde actorii sunt personajele care încearcă să-și domine propriile emoții și să-și joace rolurile.
Recenzia mea completă o găsiți aici:
https://www.delicateseliterare.ro/fii...
July 17, 2019
A big thank you to my friend, Elyse, for putting this book on my radar. I never would have wanted to miss it. ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️
In 1938 Berlin, before the war has started, Ernst Schafer, a zoologist, is discovered by Heinrich Himmler, who is forming a group of scientists. Their goal: to travel to Tibet and find the origins of the Aryan race.
The story is told through the eyes of Herat, Schafer’s wife. Kaminsky used photographs, diaries, letters, and films to piece together this compelling story.
After the mission, when Schafer and the group return to Berlin, he is viewed as a celebrity and larger than life. The next step for him involves a job at Dachau observing and filming medical experiments on Himmler’s orders.
The Hollow Bones is a chilling story, though Gerta, Ernst’s wife, offers some lightness because she is a kind person and unsure of all that is about to happen. She has her own road to travel becoming a respectful Nazi wife even though she has qualms with their beliefs. She also struggles with her feelings about her husband as he becomes more involved, but she also still sees his strengths.
There were parts of this book, as with any Holocaust book, that were extremely difficult to read due to the nature of the events. I read this book slowly, thinking, feeling, and absorbing as I turned each page.
The Hollow Bones follows Ernst all the way to the end of his life, and one must read it to find out if he is punished and how. Leah Kaminsky has penned a gripping, well-written, heartrending work of historical fiction with another perspective on the Holocaust, from that of a zoologist turned SS scientist. It’s a story of love, loss, grief, greed, and ambition.
I received a complimentary copy. All opinions are my own.
My reviews can also be found on my blog: www.jennifertarheelreader.com
In 1938 Berlin, before the war has started, Ernst Schafer, a zoologist, is discovered by Heinrich Himmler, who is forming a group of scientists. Their goal: to travel to Tibet and find the origins of the Aryan race.
The story is told through the eyes of Herat, Schafer’s wife. Kaminsky used photographs, diaries, letters, and films to piece together this compelling story.
After the mission, when Schafer and the group return to Berlin, he is viewed as a celebrity and larger than life. The next step for him involves a job at Dachau observing and filming medical experiments on Himmler’s orders.
The Hollow Bones is a chilling story, though Gerta, Ernst’s wife, offers some lightness because she is a kind person and unsure of all that is about to happen. She has her own road to travel becoming a respectful Nazi wife even though she has qualms with their beliefs. She also struggles with her feelings about her husband as he becomes more involved, but she also still sees his strengths.
There were parts of this book, as with any Holocaust book, that were extremely difficult to read due to the nature of the events. I read this book slowly, thinking, feeling, and absorbing as I turned each page.
The Hollow Bones follows Ernst all the way to the end of his life, and one must read it to find out if he is punished and how. Leah Kaminsky has penned a gripping, well-written, heartrending work of historical fiction with another perspective on the Holocaust, from that of a zoologist turned SS scientist. It’s a story of love, loss, grief, greed, and ambition.
I received a complimentary copy. All opinions are my own.
My reviews can also be found on my blog: www.jennifertarheelreader.com
April 10, 2019
5 ☆ Wow!!! I enjoy reading historical fiction in and around the WWll era and I have to say this is much MUCH different than any other story I’ve read.
The Hollow Bones is based on the life of the Nazi regimes little known villain, zoologist Ernst Schafer (German/part-Jewish. Yes Jewish, if you can believe that.) A hunter, collector, specializing in rare Tibetan birds. Ernst is invited by Heinrich Himmler to lead a team of SS scientists into Tibet to uncover their ancestral German heritage. Hitler himself believes their pure German blood comes from an ancient warrior race born in the foothills of the Tibetan Himalayas; that the Aryan race emerged from a great cosmic battle between fire + ice.
“World Ice Theory is finally receiving the recognition it deserves, overthrowing that madman Einstein and his Jewish pseudoscience. The Führer has at last accepted it as the scientific platform of the Reich. And rightly so. We know the truth now, that ice crystals are the true building blocks of the universe, not those imaginary atoms.” - Heinrich Himmler
While preparing for his upcoming trip, he marries his childhood sweetheart Herta who’s now seeing a different person emerge in Ernst. She thinks back in time to when they were children playing in the woods.. enjoying the fauna, birds and animals.. the Ernst she knew and loved. He’d now become a stranger to her. He was in effect a true SS Nazi as sinister as they all were.
In the Afterword Ernst Schäfer was exonerated in 1949 of any crimes. I find it very shocking how he escaped justice by bending the truth. I’ve only touched on a few small pieces in this fascinating story. I highly recommend reading it!
Thanks to Leah Kaminsky for sending me a pdf and my dear friend Elyse Walthers for contacting me.
The Hollow Bones is based on the life of the Nazi regimes little known villain, zoologist Ernst Schafer (German/part-Jewish. Yes Jewish, if you can believe that.) A hunter, collector, specializing in rare Tibetan birds. Ernst is invited by Heinrich Himmler to lead a team of SS scientists into Tibet to uncover their ancestral German heritage. Hitler himself believes their pure German blood comes from an ancient warrior race born in the foothills of the Tibetan Himalayas; that the Aryan race emerged from a great cosmic battle between fire + ice.
“World Ice Theory is finally receiving the recognition it deserves, overthrowing that madman Einstein and his Jewish pseudoscience. The Führer has at last accepted it as the scientific platform of the Reich. And rightly so. We know the truth now, that ice crystals are the true building blocks of the universe, not those imaginary atoms.” - Heinrich Himmler
While preparing for his upcoming trip, he marries his childhood sweetheart Herta who’s now seeing a different person emerge in Ernst. She thinks back in time to when they were children playing in the woods.. enjoying the fauna, birds and animals.. the Ernst she knew and loved. He’d now become a stranger to her. He was in effect a true SS Nazi as sinister as they all were.
In the Afterword Ernst Schäfer was exonerated in 1949 of any crimes. I find it very shocking how he escaped justice by bending the truth. I’ve only touched on a few small pieces in this fascinating story. I highly recommend reading it!
Thanks to Leah Kaminsky for sending me a pdf and my dear friend Elyse Walthers for contacting me.
June 23, 2020
The Hollow Bones retraces the life of Ernst Shafer during the rise of Hitler and the Nazi regime from the 1930s to the start of the second world war. Interpreting the impact on ordinary German lives, how they made sense of the growing despotic regime and carved their lives either to further themselves within the regime or get by without too much sacrifice.
Initially reading through the first few pages I had an expectation that this was going to be a great read. The lyrical and eloquent writing style, creating the setting, atmosphere and plot had me hooked. Unfortunately, this was short-lived.
Ernst Shafer is a Zoologist in Germany during the rise of the Nazi Party in the 1930s.
From the offset, I believed that this was going to be more than just a book recounting the passion, enthusiasm, and justification of Ernst’s life’s work. I was hoping for a more intimate and growing story illustrating a transition from friendship with Herta, to a tantalising love story between two people and the hardships encountered trying to survive and make sense of the rapidly changing environment. A backdrop which can only be described as one of the most turbulent times and places in history, Germany during the 1930s.
I assumed the book was unfolding to reveal insight into the gradual transition of people’s attitudes and how they adopted and complied with the extreme policies of the Nazi regime and the effects it had within relationships, families and life in Germany. Instead, it seemed to divide into three individual stories that ran parallel but never really connecting. Which for me made the book too long with unnecessary dialogue that could have been left out.
I felt that the author was writing about four different issues without ever bringing these issues together in a cohesive and captivating way. Leah could have taken any one of these four issues and created an individual novel. The four issues running throughout the story where:
The changing face of Germany and German society between 1930 to 1940.
The tragic love story between two young people.
The life and work of Ernst Schafer.
The story of the hunt, killing and immortalisation of a baby bear through taxidermy, from the bears perspective.
The later of these themes I felt irrelevant, as it was pure conjecture adding no significance to what I thought should have been the main storyline the developing relationship between Ernst and Herta. These interludes recalling the life of a bear killed in one of Ernst early expeditions felt more like interruptions to what I was really interested in and had tantalised me. In my view, it could have been left out completely.
With such a volatile and drastic backstop to this story, I felt there would have been more emotive content revealing the gradual shift of people’s views, opinions and perhaps fears, living in such times. However, this theme was glossed over and very rarely delved into. Personal views and opinions were not really explored which failed to add any depth to the characters.
My main angst is the continuous shift between the chronological life story of Ernst and the love story between Ernst and Herta. In my opinion, I would have preferred the focus to have been placed on the personal story between them. The story of their relationships builds to an unexpected climax which in my opinion was not adequately explored. As a reader you are totally engrossed waiting to find out what happens next leaving an anticlimactic finish to it all, as the focus was sharply shifted and transported to Ernst and his expedition. This part of the story went on for too long considering there were no real big impressive findings to come from this expedition. Unfortunately, the ending to the Ernst, Herta story was really washed over.
I give this book a rating of 3.5.
Initially reading through the first few pages I had an expectation that this was going to be a great read. The lyrical and eloquent writing style, creating the setting, atmosphere and plot had me hooked. Unfortunately, this was short-lived.
Ernst Shafer is a Zoologist in Germany during the rise of the Nazi Party in the 1930s.
From the offset, I believed that this was going to be more than just a book recounting the passion, enthusiasm, and justification of Ernst’s life’s work. I was hoping for a more intimate and growing story illustrating a transition from friendship with Herta, to a tantalising love story between two people and the hardships encountered trying to survive and make sense of the rapidly changing environment. A backdrop which can only be described as one of the most turbulent times and places in history, Germany during the 1930s.
I assumed the book was unfolding to reveal insight into the gradual transition of people’s attitudes and how they adopted and complied with the extreme policies of the Nazi regime and the effects it had within relationships, families and life in Germany. Instead, it seemed to divide into three individual stories that ran parallel but never really connecting. Which for me made the book too long with unnecessary dialogue that could have been left out.
I felt that the author was writing about four different issues without ever bringing these issues together in a cohesive and captivating way. Leah could have taken any one of these four issues and created an individual novel. The four issues running throughout the story where:
The changing face of Germany and German society between 1930 to 1940.
The tragic love story between two young people.
The life and work of Ernst Schafer.
The story of the hunt, killing and immortalisation of a baby bear through taxidermy, from the bears perspective.
The later of these themes I felt irrelevant, as it was pure conjecture adding no significance to what I thought should have been the main storyline the developing relationship between Ernst and Herta. These interludes recalling the life of a bear killed in one of Ernst early expeditions felt more like interruptions to what I was really interested in and had tantalised me. In my view, it could have been left out completely.
With such a volatile and drastic backstop to this story, I felt there would have been more emotive content revealing the gradual shift of people’s views, opinions and perhaps fears, living in such times. However, this theme was glossed over and very rarely delved into. Personal views and opinions were not really explored which failed to add any depth to the characters.
My main angst is the continuous shift between the chronological life story of Ernst and the love story between Ernst and Herta. In my opinion, I would have preferred the focus to have been placed on the personal story between them. The story of their relationships builds to an unexpected climax which in my opinion was not adequately explored. As a reader you are totally engrossed waiting to find out what happens next leaving an anticlimactic finish to it all, as the focus was sharply shifted and transported to Ernst and his expedition. This part of the story went on for too long considering there were no real big impressive findings to come from this expedition. Unfortunately, the ending to the Ernst, Herta story was really washed over.
I give this book a rating of 3.5.
May 7, 2019
*https://mrsbbookreviews.wordpress.com
4.5 stars
In her opening Author’s Note, Leah Kaminsky states, ‘While The Hollow Bones is a work of fiction, it is inspired by true events. This is an invented narrative, fed by imagination, and I have used artistic licence with historical facts, geographies and character details’. Despite this precursor, the impact of The Hollow Bones by Leah Kaminsky on this reader was significant. I was moved by the hidden history, the brevity of the tale and the man at the very centre of this novel, Ernst Schäfer. A novel defined by moments of love, passion, ambition and dedication, The Hollow Bones will habituate your mindset, long after the final word has been read.
Following the world of real life figure, Ernst Schäfer, The Hollow Bones chronicles this complex man’s childhood, through to his research and eventual work with the Nazi party. Recruited by none other than Heinrich Himmler, this passionate zoologist and hunter catches the eye of the top Nazi figurehead, who recruits Ernst to be part of a team sent to the Tibet mountains to uncover the true origins of the Aryan race. Although Ernst is a man of science and nature, he cannot resist the charms of the Nazi regime, who funds this lucrative secret mission. Ernst must balance his new role as a pertinent member of the Nazi party, with his love for his new wife Herta, who is also his childhood sweetheart. A gifted musician, Herta becomes subjected to rules and practices of the Reich. This doesn’t sit well with her, along with the Nazi influenced Tibet expedition that Ernst is so desperate to partake in. While so many atrocities are being committed by the party, the lure of this top level expedition is not enough to deter Ernst away from the unethical practices of the Nazi regime. In embarking on this mission, Ernst makes a choice that will impact both his own life and that of his beloved wife, Herta.
I was immediately struck by the eye catching bird motif on the front cover of The Hollow Bones. The bird is a hoopoe, a type of bird I had not previously come across. Striking with a crown of feathers upon its head, the hoopoe can be found in Europe and Asia, the the setting of this novel. Birds play a significant part in this novel, as they are the lead character’s research focus, among other fauna. It didn’t take long to get completely drawn into this novel. The perfect combination of an intriguing narrative, a fascinating hidden history, as well as a complicated main character, I consumed The Hollow Bones in just one sitting.
The narration in The Hollow Bones is original and compelling. Split style storytelling between the man of the tale, Ernst Schäfer, his dear wife Herta, and one of the animals, a young panda, captured and then stuffed to be put behind glass for decades in a natural history museum defines Leah Kaminsky’s fascinating historical fiction novel. This narrative division balances out the story well, it helped me as a reader to gain a better understanding of Ernst. I came to see Ernst as not just a Nazi officer that I developed quite a distaste for, but as a scientist, a hunter, a lover of nature (in his own warped way), and as a husband.
Kaminsky’s characterisation cannot be faulted, she is truly gifted in this department. The development of Ernst, Herta, the animals and many other side entrants of this novel made me see very clearly why Kaminsky’s writing is rated so highly. I am yet to read her other highly endorsed works, but I have made a conscious effort to further investigate Kaminsky’s writing very soon. Her prose has impact, each word and sentence has been clearly selected for her readers to better understand this novel and its important tale of forewarning. There are many passages that convey the natural world, especially the fauna in such a vivid light. I could easily visualise the animals Ernst was tracking down.
‘Ernst wanted to be like the hawk soaring with such mastery above the world, diving with lethal intent. His well loved shotgun gave him that power and more, for it allowed him to become a little bit godlike over even the birds of prey. He could decide whether to be content watching their dramatic movement as they arrowed in for the kill, or in an instant, fire a wing shot to drop them out of the sky.’
In terms of the history, this part of the novel elevated my working understanding of World War II to another level. I was not previously aware of the existence of the Nazi based team that went on this secret mission in the mountains of Tibet, in search of the key to proving the origins of the Aryan race. I also had not previous understanding of the World Ice Theory that populates this novel. I applaud Kaminsky in drawing my attention to this aspect of World War II and the practices of the Nazi party.
The Hollow Bones is a carefully researched novel, the evidence of this can be found at the close, in the ‘A Note on the Sources’ and the ‘Acknowledgments’ section. The segment of the novel that moved me greatly was the ‘Afterword’, which outlines Ernst Schäfer’s life after the war. Along with many other comrades in the Nazi party, these men and women were pardoned for the crimes they committed during the war. What angered me was that many of the Nazi’s like Ernst, were exonerated and they were able to live their lives, many continuing their academic research in the face of the millions who didn’t.
The Hollow Bones is a resonating story that probes into love, obsession and unthinkable acts, all of which is offset by a focus on the natural world. Penned by literary prize winner Leah Kaminsky, The Hollow Bones is a polished piece of historical fiction.
‘The most powerful language belongs to them. It’s the animals that make us human.’
*I wish to thank Penguin Books Australia for providing me with a free copy of this book for review purposes.
The Hollow Bones is book #60 of the 2019 Australian Women Writers Challenge
4.5 stars
In her opening Author’s Note, Leah Kaminsky states, ‘While The Hollow Bones is a work of fiction, it is inspired by true events. This is an invented narrative, fed by imagination, and I have used artistic licence with historical facts, geographies and character details’. Despite this precursor, the impact of The Hollow Bones by Leah Kaminsky on this reader was significant. I was moved by the hidden history, the brevity of the tale and the man at the very centre of this novel, Ernst Schäfer. A novel defined by moments of love, passion, ambition and dedication, The Hollow Bones will habituate your mindset, long after the final word has been read.
Following the world of real life figure, Ernst Schäfer, The Hollow Bones chronicles this complex man’s childhood, through to his research and eventual work with the Nazi party. Recruited by none other than Heinrich Himmler, this passionate zoologist and hunter catches the eye of the top Nazi figurehead, who recruits Ernst to be part of a team sent to the Tibet mountains to uncover the true origins of the Aryan race. Although Ernst is a man of science and nature, he cannot resist the charms of the Nazi regime, who funds this lucrative secret mission. Ernst must balance his new role as a pertinent member of the Nazi party, with his love for his new wife Herta, who is also his childhood sweetheart. A gifted musician, Herta becomes subjected to rules and practices of the Reich. This doesn’t sit well with her, along with the Nazi influenced Tibet expedition that Ernst is so desperate to partake in. While so many atrocities are being committed by the party, the lure of this top level expedition is not enough to deter Ernst away from the unethical practices of the Nazi regime. In embarking on this mission, Ernst makes a choice that will impact both his own life and that of his beloved wife, Herta.
I was immediately struck by the eye catching bird motif on the front cover of The Hollow Bones. The bird is a hoopoe, a type of bird I had not previously come across. Striking with a crown of feathers upon its head, the hoopoe can be found in Europe and Asia, the the setting of this novel. Birds play a significant part in this novel, as they are the lead character’s research focus, among other fauna. It didn’t take long to get completely drawn into this novel. The perfect combination of an intriguing narrative, a fascinating hidden history, as well as a complicated main character, I consumed The Hollow Bones in just one sitting.
The narration in The Hollow Bones is original and compelling. Split style storytelling between the man of the tale, Ernst Schäfer, his dear wife Herta, and one of the animals, a young panda, captured and then stuffed to be put behind glass for decades in a natural history museum defines Leah Kaminsky’s fascinating historical fiction novel. This narrative division balances out the story well, it helped me as a reader to gain a better understanding of Ernst. I came to see Ernst as not just a Nazi officer that I developed quite a distaste for, but as a scientist, a hunter, a lover of nature (in his own warped way), and as a husband.
Kaminsky’s characterisation cannot be faulted, she is truly gifted in this department. The development of Ernst, Herta, the animals and many other side entrants of this novel made me see very clearly why Kaminsky’s writing is rated so highly. I am yet to read her other highly endorsed works, but I have made a conscious effort to further investigate Kaminsky’s writing very soon. Her prose has impact, each word and sentence has been clearly selected for her readers to better understand this novel and its important tale of forewarning. There are many passages that convey the natural world, especially the fauna in such a vivid light. I could easily visualise the animals Ernst was tracking down.
‘Ernst wanted to be like the hawk soaring with such mastery above the world, diving with lethal intent. His well loved shotgun gave him that power and more, for it allowed him to become a little bit godlike over even the birds of prey. He could decide whether to be content watching their dramatic movement as they arrowed in for the kill, or in an instant, fire a wing shot to drop them out of the sky.’
In terms of the history, this part of the novel elevated my working understanding of World War II to another level. I was not previously aware of the existence of the Nazi based team that went on this secret mission in the mountains of Tibet, in search of the key to proving the origins of the Aryan race. I also had not previous understanding of the World Ice Theory that populates this novel. I applaud Kaminsky in drawing my attention to this aspect of World War II and the practices of the Nazi party.
The Hollow Bones is a carefully researched novel, the evidence of this can be found at the close, in the ‘A Note on the Sources’ and the ‘Acknowledgments’ section. The segment of the novel that moved me greatly was the ‘Afterword’, which outlines Ernst Schäfer’s life after the war. Along with many other comrades in the Nazi party, these men and women were pardoned for the crimes they committed during the war. What angered me was that many of the Nazi’s like Ernst, were exonerated and they were able to live their lives, many continuing their academic research in the face of the millions who didn’t.
The Hollow Bones is a resonating story that probes into love, obsession and unthinkable acts, all of which is offset by a focus on the natural world. Penned by literary prize winner Leah Kaminsky, The Hollow Bones is a polished piece of historical fiction.
‘The most powerful language belongs to them. It’s the animals that make us human.’
*I wish to thank Penguin Books Australia for providing me with a free copy of this book for review purposes.
The Hollow Bones is book #60 of the 2019 Australian Women Writers Challenge
May 25, 2019
2.5 stars
The Hollow Bones is a fictionalised novel about Ernst Schafer, a German explorer and a zoologist specialised in ornithology, who was also in the SS before and during the WWII.
I was keenly anticipating reading Kaminsky's sophomore novel, as I loved her debut The Waiting Room.
Unfortunately, this novel lacked cohesiveness, as it had two different story arcs - one was the story of Schafer and his first wife, Herta, the other, focused mainly on Schafer's professional life, his explorations in Tibet and other parts of the world.
The first part of the novel, which introduced the newly married couple, Herta and Ernst Schafer, was more enjoyable, especially, Herta's point of view. In saying all that, throughout the entire novel, I could see the author, I could "smell" contemporary attitudes, as through Herta we were seeing "the right path", what was right and what was wrong, which to me, it feels a bit revisionistic, a problem encountered in many historical novels, more obvious in some novels than others.
As if things weren't disjointed enough, there is also a dead-panda, whose soliloquies pop up now and then. Even though those passages were well written, they felt preachy and gimmicky, not to mention they broke the flow of the story.
A great chunk of this novel is dedicated to Schafer and his hunting exploits in order to collect animals for Himler and not only. The details of the tracking, explorations and the descriptions of hunting the animals and preserving them became tedious and repetitive and after a while, felt like padding.
While I appreciate the research that went into this novel, The Hollow Bones has failed to leave a positive impression on me. Hopefully, Kaminsky's third novel will resurrect my enthusiasm for her writing.
The Hollow Bones is a fictionalised novel about Ernst Schafer, a German explorer and a zoologist specialised in ornithology, who was also in the SS before and during the WWII.
I was keenly anticipating reading Kaminsky's sophomore novel, as I loved her debut The Waiting Room.
Unfortunately, this novel lacked cohesiveness, as it had two different story arcs - one was the story of Schafer and his first wife, Herta, the other, focused mainly on Schafer's professional life, his explorations in Tibet and other parts of the world.
The first part of the novel, which introduced the newly married couple, Herta and Ernst Schafer, was more enjoyable, especially, Herta's point of view. In saying all that, throughout the entire novel, I could see the author, I could "smell" contemporary attitudes, as through Herta we were seeing "the right path", what was right and what was wrong, which to me, it feels a bit revisionistic, a problem encountered in many historical novels, more obvious in some novels than others.
As if things weren't disjointed enough, there is also a dead-panda, whose soliloquies pop up now and then. Even though those passages were well written, they felt preachy and gimmicky, not to mention they broke the flow of the story.
A great chunk of this novel is dedicated to Schafer and his hunting exploits in order to collect animals for Himler and not only. The details of the tracking, explorations and the descriptions of hunting the animals and preserving them became tedious and repetitive and after a while, felt like padding.
While I appreciate the research that went into this novel, The Hollow Bones has failed to leave a positive impression on me. Hopefully, Kaminsky's third novel will resurrect my enthusiasm for her writing.
March 4, 2019
‘World Ice Theory is finally receiving the recognition it deserves, overthrowing that madman Einstein and his Jewish pseudoscience. The Führer has at last accepted it as the scientific platform of the Reich. And rightly so. We know the truth now, that ice crystals are the true building blocks of the universe, not those imaginary atoms. You, young man, will travel to Tibet to head into the bowels of the earth where Fire and Ice went to war, and the ancestors of the German Volk emerged triumphant as Sonnenmenschen. Perfect beings, as radiant as the sun.’
The Hollow Bones tells one of the most unique and sinister tales of WWII that I have ever read. It’s utterly compelling and profoundly thought provoking. It pulled me in so many directions, and even when I thought that something was either black or white, the prism would shift and all of a sudden shades of grey would seep in and collapse my convictions.
‘We are men of science, not followers of fairy-tale and superstition. This notion of a lost civilisation of Atlantis rising up somewhere in the desolate foothills of these mountains is a fatuous lie, and you know it. It corrupts our expedition and the reputation of German science.’
The science of Nazism is not something I was familiar with and it really blew my mind, to be honest, that people believed in this World Ice Theory. There were people in power, those in the decision making positions within the Third Reich that wholeheartedly believed in it. And they whipped others up into a frenzy over it, espoused it, and financed expeditions to prove it. Of note though, the scientists who were funded for the Tibet expedition, did not all believe in World Ice Theory. Obviously, as scientists, they possessed enough intelligence and rationale to dismiss it as the lie it was. But publicly, it was a means to an ends for them. And this brings us to one of the main focus topics within this novel: At what point does a person become culpable? If you’re taking advantage of what a regime has to offer to further your own scientific research, and career, are you automatically complicit in all of the atrocities that regime has committed? Can you remain distanced? For Ernst, he seemed to consider that he was a scientist first, and an SS Officer second, and only the latter out of necessity.
‘But you know I’m not one of them, Herta. I’m just a scientist.’
Ernst was such a complicated man. On the one hand, I do believe that he loved the natural world, birds in particular. And I don’t really know if he was just a product of his era, where the preservation of the natural sciences was very different to what it is today. But on the other hand, he loved to hunt. And I just couldn’t get those two philosophies to marry up. Neither could his wife, Herta.
‘Watching him speak so animatedly to his fellow hunters, she saw a side of her husband she would never be able to reconcile with her childhood image of him. How could a man who held such a deep reverence for nature and all its gifts at the same time be its destroyer?’
I did really like how this story was told by both Ernst and Herta. They loved each other very deeply, for so long, but the Nazi ideology drove a wedge between them, not that Ernst was a steadfast Nazi, but more the opposite: he was complacent, believing only in his science, he didn’t care about Nazism, if they wanted to give him money to go to Tibet, his dream destination for research, then he wasn’t going to knock it back. He didn’t consider the shoes he was filling, the Jewish scientists who had been pulled from their positions and shipped to death camps. He joined the SS at the prompting and organisation of his father, who in turn did it to secure Ernst’s safety and career path. I can’t help but wonder how many people saw the writing on the wall early on and chose self-preservation over morality, joined the Nazi party and sold their souls as a mean of survival. It’s a very murky, grey area. Many of these people joined in the early days, before the regime really kicked in with force, before ‘the madness descended’. I could see where Ernst was coming from, but I could also see where Herta was as well. As a musician at the Conservatory, she saw Jewish musicians losing their positions, only to be replaced by inferior German ones. It bothered her, a lot, both its occurrence and that Ernst didn’t seem to object. As I mentioned above, Ernst was a complicated man and I really feel that he has come to life within this novel with all of his complications laid bare. He confused me, how much he loved the natural world yet sought dominion over it. He claimed to not be ‘one of them’ (the SS), and yet he was not outraged by the persecution of Jews and happily profited from their elimination. I wanted to be repelled by him, and I was, but then, at times, I also wasn’t. It was unsettling, to say the least.
‘He surveyed the room, which held almost the sum total of who he was. His achievements were measured in head counts, in the preserved corpses of animals he’d carefully plucked off this earth.’
~~~
‘As people gazed through the glass at the dioramas of natural-history museums around the world, they shared in the wonders of nature, and its serenity. They didn’t realise it was impossible to be a hunter without loving the animal you chased. Somehow, he needed to make Herta see that he was a dedicated chronicler of the wild, sacrificing his own comfort for future generations, so that through his work all might witness the beauty of this earth.’
I loved Herta. She was such an amazing woman and I felt so deeply sorry for her. To my mind, she was a ‘reluctant Aryan’, a woman who filled the Nazi bill to perfection but wanted no part of it. She struggled with the ideology, was repelled by the anti-Semitism, couldn’t accept that Ernst, her beloved husband, could sell out without conscience. The tragedy of their marriage really rocked me and it also solidified who Ernst was, deep inside. The science, it was everything to him, and nothing was going to come before it, much less risk it.
‘This was how she woke of late, the shadows filling the musty corners of the room. They winced in the light when she pulled back the curtains. Some days, she opened her eyes at dawn thinking it was dusk, hoping the long day ahead might already be over. Through the gauze of half-light, she stared at her blank face in the mirror. She recalled how she used to greet each day with bursting excitement at first, dreaming and planning for her future with Ernst, ignoring her father’s apprehensive gaze. The whispering in her head never stopped.’
There is another aspect to this novel that adds to its unique appeal. We have a third perspective offering a side to this story, a very different side. A voice from the present day, Panda, is telling his story from behind the glass in the Museum of Natural History in Philadelphia. He was shot by Ernst in the early 1930s during his first Tibetan expedition, and was then preserved for the museum. I saw a picture of Panda online, I looked it up after reading this novel. It made me cry. Leah had made him real for me, breathed life into him, and it was too soon after reading the novel for me to have seen a picture of him. This beautiful baby panda, his life cut short so that he can spend eternity staged behind glass. I have never liked taxidermy. When I was younger, I spent several months in Europe, and our home base was in Belgium, staying with my Great-Aunt. She had so many birds stuffed and mounted, staring unseeing out forever, collecting dust. It creeped me out and made me sad in equal measure. I kept thinking about those birds while reading this novel. Panda’s voice is pragmatic, his view if the world singularly poignant, and his role is all the more powerful on account of it. As a storytelling device, the inclusion of Panda was both unique and brilliant.
‘I trouble them; my Death makes them feel uncomfortable. But how is my Eternal Life any worse than Crocodile whose skin covers President’s feet, or Cow whose hide is worn by Small around her middle? I command more respect than the Animal Parts they wear, carry, eat; at least my life has not been anonymously erased.’
The Hollow Bones is one of those novels that will haunt me; that I’ll always keep a copy of on my shelf; one I will recommend and talk about for years to come. I am so grateful to Leah Kaminsky for writing this novel, for enlightening me on this part of history that I had up until now known nothing about. The Hollow Bones is highly accessible literary historical fiction, a study on the intersection between science, politics, and the natural world. I absolutely loved this novel and recommend it widely.
‘He could close his eyes anywhere he went on earth and tell exactly where he was, just from local birdcalls. Their plaintive, wailing cries spoke the language of his heart.’
Thanks is extended to Penguin Random House Australia for providing me with a copy of The Hollow Bones for review.
The Hollow Bones tells one of the most unique and sinister tales of WWII that I have ever read. It’s utterly compelling and profoundly thought provoking. It pulled me in so many directions, and even when I thought that something was either black or white, the prism would shift and all of a sudden shades of grey would seep in and collapse my convictions.
‘We are men of science, not followers of fairy-tale and superstition. This notion of a lost civilisation of Atlantis rising up somewhere in the desolate foothills of these mountains is a fatuous lie, and you know it. It corrupts our expedition and the reputation of German science.’
The science of Nazism is not something I was familiar with and it really blew my mind, to be honest, that people believed in this World Ice Theory. There were people in power, those in the decision making positions within the Third Reich that wholeheartedly believed in it. And they whipped others up into a frenzy over it, espoused it, and financed expeditions to prove it. Of note though, the scientists who were funded for the Tibet expedition, did not all believe in World Ice Theory. Obviously, as scientists, they possessed enough intelligence and rationale to dismiss it as the lie it was. But publicly, it was a means to an ends for them. And this brings us to one of the main focus topics within this novel: At what point does a person become culpable? If you’re taking advantage of what a regime has to offer to further your own scientific research, and career, are you automatically complicit in all of the atrocities that regime has committed? Can you remain distanced? For Ernst, he seemed to consider that he was a scientist first, and an SS Officer second, and only the latter out of necessity.
‘But you know I’m not one of them, Herta. I’m just a scientist.’
Ernst was such a complicated man. On the one hand, I do believe that he loved the natural world, birds in particular. And I don’t really know if he was just a product of his era, where the preservation of the natural sciences was very different to what it is today. But on the other hand, he loved to hunt. And I just couldn’t get those two philosophies to marry up. Neither could his wife, Herta.
‘Watching him speak so animatedly to his fellow hunters, she saw a side of her husband she would never be able to reconcile with her childhood image of him. How could a man who held such a deep reverence for nature and all its gifts at the same time be its destroyer?’
I did really like how this story was told by both Ernst and Herta. They loved each other very deeply, for so long, but the Nazi ideology drove a wedge between them, not that Ernst was a steadfast Nazi, but more the opposite: he was complacent, believing only in his science, he didn’t care about Nazism, if they wanted to give him money to go to Tibet, his dream destination for research, then he wasn’t going to knock it back. He didn’t consider the shoes he was filling, the Jewish scientists who had been pulled from their positions and shipped to death camps. He joined the SS at the prompting and organisation of his father, who in turn did it to secure Ernst’s safety and career path. I can’t help but wonder how many people saw the writing on the wall early on and chose self-preservation over morality, joined the Nazi party and sold their souls as a mean of survival. It’s a very murky, grey area. Many of these people joined in the early days, before the regime really kicked in with force, before ‘the madness descended’. I could see where Ernst was coming from, but I could also see where Herta was as well. As a musician at the Conservatory, she saw Jewish musicians losing their positions, only to be replaced by inferior German ones. It bothered her, a lot, both its occurrence and that Ernst didn’t seem to object. As I mentioned above, Ernst was a complicated man and I really feel that he has come to life within this novel with all of his complications laid bare. He confused me, how much he loved the natural world yet sought dominion over it. He claimed to not be ‘one of them’ (the SS), and yet he was not outraged by the persecution of Jews and happily profited from their elimination. I wanted to be repelled by him, and I was, but then, at times, I also wasn’t. It was unsettling, to say the least.
‘He surveyed the room, which held almost the sum total of who he was. His achievements were measured in head counts, in the preserved corpses of animals he’d carefully plucked off this earth.’
~~~
‘As people gazed through the glass at the dioramas of natural-history museums around the world, they shared in the wonders of nature, and its serenity. They didn’t realise it was impossible to be a hunter without loving the animal you chased. Somehow, he needed to make Herta see that he was a dedicated chronicler of the wild, sacrificing his own comfort for future generations, so that through his work all might witness the beauty of this earth.’
I loved Herta. She was such an amazing woman and I felt so deeply sorry for her. To my mind, she was a ‘reluctant Aryan’, a woman who filled the Nazi bill to perfection but wanted no part of it. She struggled with the ideology, was repelled by the anti-Semitism, couldn’t accept that Ernst, her beloved husband, could sell out without conscience. The tragedy of their marriage really rocked me and it also solidified who Ernst was, deep inside. The science, it was everything to him, and nothing was going to come before it, much less risk it.
‘This was how she woke of late, the shadows filling the musty corners of the room. They winced in the light when she pulled back the curtains. Some days, she opened her eyes at dawn thinking it was dusk, hoping the long day ahead might already be over. Through the gauze of half-light, she stared at her blank face in the mirror. She recalled how she used to greet each day with bursting excitement at first, dreaming and planning for her future with Ernst, ignoring her father’s apprehensive gaze. The whispering in her head never stopped.’
There is another aspect to this novel that adds to its unique appeal. We have a third perspective offering a side to this story, a very different side. A voice from the present day, Panda, is telling his story from behind the glass in the Museum of Natural History in Philadelphia. He was shot by Ernst in the early 1930s during his first Tibetan expedition, and was then preserved for the museum. I saw a picture of Panda online, I looked it up after reading this novel. It made me cry. Leah had made him real for me, breathed life into him, and it was too soon after reading the novel for me to have seen a picture of him. This beautiful baby panda, his life cut short so that he can spend eternity staged behind glass. I have never liked taxidermy. When I was younger, I spent several months in Europe, and our home base was in Belgium, staying with my Great-Aunt. She had so many birds stuffed and mounted, staring unseeing out forever, collecting dust. It creeped me out and made me sad in equal measure. I kept thinking about those birds while reading this novel. Panda’s voice is pragmatic, his view if the world singularly poignant, and his role is all the more powerful on account of it. As a storytelling device, the inclusion of Panda was both unique and brilliant.
‘I trouble them; my Death makes them feel uncomfortable. But how is my Eternal Life any worse than Crocodile whose skin covers President’s feet, or Cow whose hide is worn by Small around her middle? I command more respect than the Animal Parts they wear, carry, eat; at least my life has not been anonymously erased.’
The Hollow Bones is one of those novels that will haunt me; that I’ll always keep a copy of on my shelf; one I will recommend and talk about for years to come. I am so grateful to Leah Kaminsky for writing this novel, for enlightening me on this part of history that I had up until now known nothing about. The Hollow Bones is highly accessible literary historical fiction, a study on the intersection between science, politics, and the natural world. I absolutely loved this novel and recommend it widely.
‘He could close his eyes anywhere he went on earth and tell exactly where he was, just from local birdcalls. Their plaintive, wailing cries spoke the language of his heart.’
Thanks is extended to Penguin Random House Australia for providing me with a copy of The Hollow Bones for review.
August 16, 2019
So glad I had the opportunity to read this one. This historical fiction book takes place primarily in Germany in the few years right before the start of World War 2. Worth reading in my opinion.
Full review coming soon.
Full review coming soon.
April 15, 2019
I feel so lucky to get a copy of this book. It is published in Australia, but here in the US, the book has NOT been published and is hard to find. I don't know why, but I hope to campaign and find out!!
This book is an example of EXCELLENT historical fiction- well researched and covers a little known story. I think it took a lot of courage to write this book. Can you tell I'm impressed?
Before we get into the story, let's look at that gorgeous cover. That's a hoopoe bird. Its plumage is sensational. Its crown identifies it as regal. Usually found in Africa, it can be found in Tibet as well.
The story itself is a WWII story. It relates the need for the Nazis (Himmler especially) to research the origins of the Aryan race. For this purpose he contracts Ernst Schaefer, a man known as an explorer, hunter and zoologist. He is also a member of the SS. Ernst heads for Tibet with a party of other explorers. Ernst is mainly in for the hunting, but another man is measuring heads and taking face molds, trying to prove the Aryan connection.
This book is also a love story. Ernst' wife Herta is a character in this book. According to the author, little is know about Herta. I applaud the inclusion of her thoughts and dreams.
I do believe that all names in this book are those of real people. No name changes to protect the guilty.
5 stars. Would give it 6 if I could
This book is an example of EXCELLENT historical fiction- well researched and covers a little known story. I think it took a lot of courage to write this book. Can you tell I'm impressed?
Before we get into the story, let's look at that gorgeous cover. That's a hoopoe bird. Its plumage is sensational. Its crown identifies it as regal. Usually found in Africa, it can be found in Tibet as well.
The story itself is a WWII story. It relates the need for the Nazis (Himmler especially) to research the origins of the Aryan race. For this purpose he contracts Ernst Schaefer, a man known as an explorer, hunter and zoologist. He is also a member of the SS. Ernst heads for Tibet with a party of other explorers. Ernst is mainly in for the hunting, but another man is measuring heads and taking face molds, trying to prove the Aryan connection.
This book is also a love story. Ernst' wife Herta is a character in this book. According to the author, little is know about Herta. I applaud the inclusion of her thoughts and dreams.
I do believe that all names in this book are those of real people. No name changes to protect the guilty.
5 stars. Would give it 6 if I could
February 11, 2019
The Hollow Bones is a dazzling exploration of evil, love, and madness that had me turning the pages late into the night. Set in pre-Nazi Germany, Tibet, and an unnamed contemporary zoological museum that displays extinct animal species behind glass—among them a Panda with a tragic history and an uncertain future who is also a main character—Kaminsky’s second novel blends historical facts and magical realism with a deft hand, the result of which is a thoroughly provoking work of fiction. Until I read The Hollow Bones I had never heard of World Ice Theory, nor did I know about the infamous expedition financed by the Nazi government in the hopes of proving that the German race descended from pure crystal Ice in the mountains of Nepal. The expedition, lead by Ernst Schafer, SS man and world-renowned hunter and zoologist who specialized in ornithology, is the driving force behind the plot of the novel, as are the animals he hunted down and killed and “lovingly” stuffed for display. Kaminsky weaves Ernst’s history, his love of his work, his life and ambition and ultimately his demise, with clear-eyed compassion, making him attacker and unknowing victim. This novel reminded me a lot of “All The Light We Cannot See,” but it reads very differently in that there are fewer points of view (Panda, Ernst, and Herta, his wife and childhood sweetheart) and takes place before the war. The story’s main preoccupation is the brand new world of the Nazi regime that unfolds before Ernst’s eyes, his innocence as a boy growing up in the German countryside and his meditation on life as the Internationally famous explorer and golden boy of the Nazi regime: “The cold anatomy of death was so harshly distant from life’s flappings, crawlings and wanderings. The joyful miracle of life ended here, with these bones.” An easy fast read that fulfills as much as it entertains. My favorite passage in the novel: “The most powerful language belongs to them. It’s the animals who make us human.”
May 26, 2019
Ernst Schafer was a German zoologist, hunter and explorer with a beautiful wife, Herta. In the 1930’s, Heinrich Heimler became interested in Schafer and his work. The SS funded an expedition of scientists to Tibet in a quest to find the origins of the Aryan race in the Himalayans with Schafer in the lead. But soon the horrors of the Nazi regime began and Schafer is pulled into the manipulative world of Hitler.
When Ernst was a young boy, he and Herta were best friends. When they met again as adults, they fell in love and were so happy together. When they decided to marry, they were told that Herta would have to go to a German bridal school to learn how to be a good German wife. As much as I’ve read about that period in time, I was shocked at how extensive and rigid this schooling was. But Herta wanted to be Ernst’s wife so she went along with all they threw at her. But after their marriage, Ernst begins to change. It’s fascinating to watch the corruption of Ernst by the Nazi regime and sad to see how that corruption begins to eat at Ernst and Herta’s marriage.
The Nazis’ intolerance of imperfection is well known. Herta had a sister with some disabilities and there was quite a bit included in the book about her, the secrecy the family felt they had to keep and her ultimate disappearance.
One of the narrators of this book is a Panda that Ernst shot and stuffed and placed in a museum. This was a very unique way to let Ernst’s animal victims have a voice in this book. I do warn fellow animal lovers that there is a lot of killing of animals, mostly birds, in this book, along with hunting and taxidermy. It made the book a difficult topic for me to read but it was a fascinating story of a Nazi that I had not read anything about before.
Recommended.
This book was given to me by the publisher in return for an honest review.
When Ernst was a young boy, he and Herta were best friends. When they met again as adults, they fell in love and were so happy together. When they decided to marry, they were told that Herta would have to go to a German bridal school to learn how to be a good German wife. As much as I’ve read about that period in time, I was shocked at how extensive and rigid this schooling was. But Herta wanted to be Ernst’s wife so she went along with all they threw at her. But after their marriage, Ernst begins to change. It’s fascinating to watch the corruption of Ernst by the Nazi regime and sad to see how that corruption begins to eat at Ernst and Herta’s marriage.
The Nazis’ intolerance of imperfection is well known. Herta had a sister with some disabilities and there was quite a bit included in the book about her, the secrecy the family felt they had to keep and her ultimate disappearance.
One of the narrators of this book is a Panda that Ernst shot and stuffed and placed in a museum. This was a very unique way to let Ernst’s animal victims have a voice in this book. I do warn fellow animal lovers that there is a lot of killing of animals, mostly birds, in this book, along with hunting and taxidermy. It made the book a difficult topic for me to read but it was a fascinating story of a Nazi that I had not read anything about before.
Recommended.
This book was given to me by the publisher in return for an honest review.
March 31, 2024
‘Soon we will both disappear forever, our story hidden away in dusty archives.’
Ms Kaminsky has based her novel on the 1938 expedition by Ernst Schäfer to Tibet. The expedition, funded by the Schutzstaffel (SS) to find the origins of the Aryan race:
‘You are to bring back evidence of what we already know is the truth – that our pure German blood comes from an ancient warrior race born in the foothills of the Tibetan Himalayas.’
In this novel, Ms Kaminsky explores what motivates Ernst Schäfer. As a child he spent a lot of time in the forest with his childhood sweetheart Herta: he loved nature. But in 1938, on the eve of war and now married to Herta, Ernst comes to the attention of Heinrich Himmler. Ernst is torn by his ambition, becomes obsessed and makes compromises that corrupt.
‘I don’t give a damn what hocus-pocus they are conjuring up in that haunted castle of theirs. If Himmler wants to believe ancient Aryans conquered Asia, who am I to challenge him? As long as he coughs up the money for this trip, I’m happy.’
And Herta? She senses danger but remains loyal.
‘Where was that young child who would frolic in the woods? Some days she still saw, him bathed in sunlight, the boy she knew before, eyes the colour of honey. But duty had blocked his ears to her pleas, while Tibet oozed in through the cracks in the windowpane and floated in through the front door.’
There’s another voice in this story: the voice of a panda cub. This panda cub was shot and stuffed by Ernst Schäfer and is (still) in the Philadelphia Museum of National History. The panda cub provides a view back through events from 2019, his observations reminding us that while time passes, attitudes can remain constant. The panda cub is yet another victim.
‘To collect was to control.’
Initially I found the voice of the panda cub disconcerting, but once I focussed on the message rather than the messenger, it worked beautifully for me. A panda, trapped behind glass, reminding us (oh so gently) of the value of life. Reminding us that destruction is so often a consequence of understanding.
‘We are men of science, not followers of fairytale and superstition.’
And Herta? She provides the flicker of light in this story, a hope that the world can move beyond madness. I kept reading and hoping. I had no idea, when I picked this novel up, where it would take me. I had no idea how uncomfortable I would be during much of the novel. I had no idea how moved I would be. I had no idea.
I finished this novel, full of conflicting feelings about the content, full of admiration for the way in which Ms Kaminsky wrote it. It is haunting and heartbreaking, a novel to read and reflect on.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
Ms Kaminsky has based her novel on the 1938 expedition by Ernst Schäfer to Tibet. The expedition, funded by the Schutzstaffel (SS) to find the origins of the Aryan race:
‘You are to bring back evidence of what we already know is the truth – that our pure German blood comes from an ancient warrior race born in the foothills of the Tibetan Himalayas.’
In this novel, Ms Kaminsky explores what motivates Ernst Schäfer. As a child he spent a lot of time in the forest with his childhood sweetheart Herta: he loved nature. But in 1938, on the eve of war and now married to Herta, Ernst comes to the attention of Heinrich Himmler. Ernst is torn by his ambition, becomes obsessed and makes compromises that corrupt.
‘I don’t give a damn what hocus-pocus they are conjuring up in that haunted castle of theirs. If Himmler wants to believe ancient Aryans conquered Asia, who am I to challenge him? As long as he coughs up the money for this trip, I’m happy.’
And Herta? She senses danger but remains loyal.
‘Where was that young child who would frolic in the woods? Some days she still saw, him bathed in sunlight, the boy she knew before, eyes the colour of honey. But duty had blocked his ears to her pleas, while Tibet oozed in through the cracks in the windowpane and floated in through the front door.’
There’s another voice in this story: the voice of a panda cub. This panda cub was shot and stuffed by Ernst Schäfer and is (still) in the Philadelphia Museum of National History. The panda cub provides a view back through events from 2019, his observations reminding us that while time passes, attitudes can remain constant. The panda cub is yet another victim.
‘To collect was to control.’
Initially I found the voice of the panda cub disconcerting, but once I focussed on the message rather than the messenger, it worked beautifully for me. A panda, trapped behind glass, reminding us (oh so gently) of the value of life. Reminding us that destruction is so often a consequence of understanding.
‘We are men of science, not followers of fairytale and superstition.’
And Herta? She provides the flicker of light in this story, a hope that the world can move beyond madness. I kept reading and hoping. I had no idea, when I picked this novel up, where it would take me. I had no idea how uncomfortable I would be during much of the novel. I had no idea how moved I would be. I had no idea.
I finished this novel, full of conflicting feelings about the content, full of admiration for the way in which Ms Kaminsky wrote it. It is haunting and heartbreaking, a novel to read and reflect on.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
December 19, 2018
A captivating fictional retelling of the little known, and completely bizarre, part of Nazi history. I love the dark humour and the poetry of Kaminsky's writing. What a feat of a novel...
March 23, 2019
2.5 stars from me.
Like an earlier reviewer, I'm at odds about this book. It is extraordinarily well researched and paints a chilling picture of how easily rational scientific minds can be seduced and subverted by the promise of funds for their research.
Certainly, the most horrifying part of the book was the final section which follows up on the main characters, most of which went on to take significant roles in Third reich atrocities, but were then exonerated and enjoyed long lives.
On the other hand I found the writing clumsy and disjointed. I disliked the device of using the voice of the long-dead and stuffed panda and don't believe it contributed anything to the story except, for me, a degree of irritation.
I think it could have also done with a much tighter edit, to at least clear up contradictory images used in more than one scene.
Like an earlier reviewer, I'm at odds about this book. It is extraordinarily well researched and paints a chilling picture of how easily rational scientific minds can be seduced and subverted by the promise of funds for their research.
Certainly, the most horrifying part of the book was the final section which follows up on the main characters, most of which went on to take significant roles in Third reich atrocities, but were then exonerated and enjoyed long lives.
On the other hand I found the writing clumsy and disjointed. I disliked the device of using the voice of the long-dead and stuffed panda and don't believe it contributed anything to the story except, for me, a degree of irritation.
I think it could have also done with a much tighter edit, to at least clear up contradictory images used in more than one scene.
May 4, 2019
I have the feeling that I’m not the best reader/reviewer for this book. Others have raved about it and given it 4 or 5 stars. My reaction was more subdued. There were things in it that greatly impressed me, and others that irritated me. I won’t go into any details apart from noting that I found the panda material perplexing. How much research must have gone into writing the book, though! I thought I was reasonably well-versed in the social policies and programs of the Third Reich, but I discovered so much that was new for me. I certainly knew nothing about the Tibet expedition or the bizarre ice theory that some Nazi officials evidently embraced.
I hope the book finds an American publisher. My own reactions notwithstanding, I think it would do quite well here.
I hope the book finds an American publisher. My own reactions notwithstanding, I think it would do quite well here.
May 5, 2019
Interesting story (historical fiction), based on true facts which happened in Germany in 1937, 1938... , about life and work of a young, German scientist, zoolog, Ernest Schafer, sent to Tibet (by Himmler) to discover the beginnings of Aryan race.
The style of writing is very light, almost too Iight for such subject, still addictive, engaging, a quick read.
The beginning of this book was very interesting, couldn't stop reading.
Didn't like the second part of the book, especially the part in Tibet neither the end of story. Unfortunately "The hollow bones" ends with a lot of unanswered questions.
The style of writing is very light, almost too Iight for such subject, still addictive, engaging, a quick read.
The beginning of this book was very interesting, couldn't stop reading.
Didn't like the second part of the book, especially the part in Tibet neither the end of story. Unfortunately "The hollow bones" ends with a lot of unanswered questions.
February 4, 2019
From the embers of history, Kaminsky weaves a cracking tale of adventure, competing loyalties and the folly of sacrificing reason on the ideological altar.
April 4, 2019
Leah Kaminsky’s ‘The Hollow Bones’ is a rare bird in the world of historical fiction set in interwar Germany. From beginning to end, I found myself marvelling at the breadth and depth of this meticulously researched, finely crafted story about SS scientists’ zealous pursuit of science and pseudoscience. Kaminsky drew upon historical documents and various reference texts to form the intricate bones of a story about Ernst Shäfer – the ambitious and opportunistic German zoologist, explorer, and hunter who led a scientific expedition to Tibet in search of the origins of the Aryan race. Kaminsky fleshed out this historical narrative with her imagination, with that creativity she also displayed in her award-winning debut novel ‘The Waiting Room’. The inherent poetry of her prose is meaningful, memorable, poignant, and thought-provoking, often encouraging reflection on the unethical acts of the Nazi regime as well as ethical grey areas. Ernst Shäfer’s cold voice of science is constantly at odds with his childhood sweetheart’s, Herta’s, warm voice of humanity and his colleagues’ collective voice of pseudoscience (including the World Ice Theory underlying the expedition to Tibet). Herta’s unease at what Ernst – the love of her life – is willing to do in the pursuit of scientific knowledge, including aligning himself with the Third Reich and hunting animals to turn into specimens, provides many of the novel’s most powerful moments. I found Kaminsky’s characters to be complex yet believable in the historical context of a Germany building towards World War II. Throughout the novel, Kaminsky also ingeniously flashes forward to a modern day museum to breathe life into a panda that Ernst preserved through taxidermy early in his scientific career. This additional voice – that of a contented scientific specimen – invites readers to reflect on whether they consider it ethical for taxidermists to preserve animals, such as the now-extinct thylacine (Tasmanian tiger), for future generations of scientists, artists, and members of the general public to behold and study. Although several days have passed since I finished reading this book, I continue to think deeply about the subject matter and to feel conflicting feelings. I will definitely be reading The Hollow Bones again.
July 16, 2019
The Hollow Bones is a fascinating read on multiple levels, and one that has left me thinking weeks after finishing it.
This is an extraordinary insight into Ernst Schafer, a man I had not heard of despite the calibre of his SS connections. Through Ernst's views woven with those of his childhood sweetheart, Herta, the juxtaposition of love, friendship and family, with scientific pursuit, ambition and single-mindedness during a dark period in history are examined. How challenging it must have been for author, Leah Kaminsky, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor to inhabit the mind of an SS officer to write this novel. The extensively researched product is a stunning exploration of human character, an attempt to understand why and how a person, and indeed many people, could be carried on a wave of such evilness.
At a time when authors are being criticised for writing characters disparate from themselves, key here is the lack of stereotype, the flawed but nuanced characters with surprises. I wonder if the point of difference is in striving to understand rather than gloss over, to challenge our thinking, to make us question how these movements take hold and if we were so placed, what the outcome might be?
And one of the most unusual characters is the lovely Panda, who gives a small but charming voice to the creatures Ernst Schafer hunted and collected - poignant but also reminding us of the "life" and meaning embodied in his form.
Like the best literary prose, Kaminsky's writing is evocative and beautifully crafted while entirely approachable. And like the best historical fiction, The Hollow Bones puts us into another era, both elucidating and thought-provoking to the end, leaving many questions to ponder.
This is an extraordinary insight into Ernst Schafer, a man I had not heard of despite the calibre of his SS connections. Through Ernst's views woven with those of his childhood sweetheart, Herta, the juxtaposition of love, friendship and family, with scientific pursuit, ambition and single-mindedness during a dark period in history are examined. How challenging it must have been for author, Leah Kaminsky, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor to inhabit the mind of an SS officer to write this novel. The extensively researched product is a stunning exploration of human character, an attempt to understand why and how a person, and indeed many people, could be carried on a wave of such evilness.
At a time when authors are being criticised for writing characters disparate from themselves, key here is the lack of stereotype, the flawed but nuanced characters with surprises. I wonder if the point of difference is in striving to understand rather than gloss over, to challenge our thinking, to make us question how these movements take hold and if we were so placed, what the outcome might be?
And one of the most unusual characters is the lovely Panda, who gives a small but charming voice to the creatures Ernst Schafer hunted and collected - poignant but also reminding us of the "life" and meaning embodied in his form.
Like the best literary prose, Kaminsky's writing is evocative and beautifully crafted while entirely approachable. And like the best historical fiction, The Hollow Bones puts us into another era, both elucidating and thought-provoking to the end, leaving many questions to ponder.
July 20, 2019
This is a beautiful book and Leah Kaminsky is a lovely writer. I thought I'd read a lot about this era, but this was a new corner, and filled with compelling material. I especially loved her willingness to take risks. Arundhati Roy said something somewhere recently about not wanting to lose the wildness in novels. She's right I think.
March 31, 2019
This is an emotionally difficult novel to read. The author has done extensive research, and the resultant tale takes you into the Nazi’s search for the origins of the Aryan race. The characters, as one would expect, are very difficult to relate to and the horrors inflicted are worse as you know they are factually based. Tragic, heartbreaking and historically important. This will not be for everyone, however, everyone should read it.
March 11, 2019
This is an incredible rich & complex book. History, biology, taxidermy, love, travel, politics and fantasy. Nazis juxtaposed with Tibetan monks ... innocence v ignorance ... the magic of feathers... and the absolute terrifying madness of the ‘Third Reich’. Will need to be read again!
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