The Curator’s Daughter
The Curator’s Daughter by Melanie Dobson, published by Tyndale House Publishers in 2021, is a historical fiction novel that spans multiple decades. This 416-page book explores the life of Hanna Tillich, a young archaeologist in Nazi Germany who faces moral dilemmas as she is drawn deeper into the regime’s oppressive structures. As she is forced to marry an SS officer and adopt a young girl, Hanna’s perspective shifts, revealing the complexities of her situation and the secrets she harbors.
In a parallel narrative set eighty years later, Ember Ellis, a Holocaust researcher, seeks to confront historical hatred while grappling with her own trauma. As she reconnects with a former teacher, she uncovers the duality of human experience during World War II, particularly through the lens of Mrs. Kiehl’s memories of her mother’s involvement with the Nazi Ahnenerbe. The novel delves into themes of identity, memory, and the impact of history on personal lives, inviting readers to reflect on the legacies of the past.
Official synopsis Publisher
A young girl, kidnapped on the eve of World War II, changes the lives of a German archaeologist forced into the Nazi Party and–decades later–a researcher trying to overcome her own trauma.
1940. Hanna Tillich cherishes her work as an archaeologist for the Third Reich, searching for the Holy Grail and other artifacts to bolster evidence of a master Aryan race. But when she is reassigned to work as a museum curator in Nuremberg, then forced to marry an SS officer and adopt a young girl, Hanna begins to see behind the Nazi facade. A prayer labyrinth becomes a storehouse for Hanna’s secrets, but as she comes to love Lilly as her own daughter, she fears that what she’s hiding–and what she begins to uncover–could put them both in mortal danger.
Eighty years later, Ember Ellis is a Holocaust researcher intent on confronting hatred toward the Jewish people and other minorities. She reconnects with a former teacher on Martha’s Vineyard after she learns that Mrs. Kiehl’s mother once worked with the Nazi Ahnenerbe. And yet, Mrs. Kiehl describes her mother as “a friend to the Jewish people.” Wondering how both could be true, Ember helps Mrs. Kiehl regain her fractured childhood memories of World War II while at the same time confronting the heartache of her own secret past–and the person who wants to silence Ember forever.
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