English history student Daniel Miller pays some rent at Molly Robinson’s student B&B as resident handyman. Thus fixing the shower he bumps, uninformed, into undressed workaholic Marburg (Germany) history professor Nina Petersen who returned to alma mater Oxford for lectures on Holocaust victims after translating some letters for a book by her near-ex-lover professor Thomas Rothwell. Soon Daniel discloses one of the victims was his Jewish grandmother, from the last load of children sent oversea before the Crystal night. The three team up to investigate her fate, having been fostered out by her initial benefactor, lord John Addington, who initially refuses any contact with Daniel, but while Daniel and NIna fall in love, the letters lead to a two-sided joint family secret.