Belonging: A German Reckons with History and Home

Started yesterday, finished this morning: this is the first adult picture book I've wanted to read, and as anticipated, I couldn't put it down.

I suppose you could shelve this in some rather specific way. The 'my grandparents were Nazis' memoir shelf. Or the 'ordinary people in the period 1930-1950 in Nazi Germany' shelf. For me, I'd put it under 'everybody should read this'. It asks all the questions, without coming up with any answers. But keeping those questions on the tip of our collective tongue is vital to stopping such horror in the future. We need an autistic attitude, we have to feel that these things have just happened, and could happen any moment again. I do believe that the reason we are seeing the resurgence of the extreme show more right now is at least partly because our memory is slipping, too many feel like it's a past that isn't connected to the present. But it is. By blood, by education, by culture, by belief, by greed and by all the bad features of being a human which are after all, the reason why we created society in the first place. To try to hold them in check.

Thank you Nora Krug, for your search for answers. It is your contribution to our never ending discussion about the meaning of life. show less

Started yesterday, finished this morning: this is the first adult picture book I've wanted to read, and as anticipated, I couldn't put it down.

I suppose you could shelve this in some rather specific way. The 'my grandparents were Nazis' memoir shelf. Or the 'ordinary people in the period 1930-1950 in Nazi Germany' shelf. For me, I'd put it under 'everybody should read this'. It asks all the questions, without coming up with any answers. But keeping those questions on the tip of our collective tongue is vital to stopping such horror in the future. We need an autistic attitude, we have to feel that these things have just happened, and could happen any moment again. I do believe that the reason we are seeing the resurgence of the extreme show more right now is at least partly because our memory is slipping, too many feel like it's a past that isn't connected to the present. But it is. By blood, by education, by culture, by belief, by greed and by all the bad features of being a human which are after all, the reason why we created society in the first place. To try to hold them in check.

Thank you Nora Krug, for your search for answers. It is your contribution to our never ending discussion about the meaning of life. show less

I would give this book ALL the stars, but Goodreads restricts me to 5 so this book is 5 stars with a hidden zillion stars.

There are only 2 types of books about the Holocaust/WW2 published in English: heroic British/American/non-Brit Europeans (in that order) fighting evil Nazis, or tales of suffering Jews. These books can be non-fiction or fiction but only these two types of narratives are allowed. And now, finally, something else. Something new. And this something else is not just new, but it is real and honest and sad and hopeful.

Highly, highly recommend.

I found this account to be both fascinating and moving. It grapples head-on with the unease of being part of a population coming to terms with acknowledging past abuses on a national scale, the topic of reparation and whether that can ever be enough, and the immediacy of identity dysphoria that inherited shame creates. This is a topic that I expect/hope to see more of in the future -- I think America has a lot of buried topics that we need to unearth and confront, and I admire this book as a sort of personal toolkit for examining difficult topics without flinching away. I think this kind of personal examination is the best possible way forward.

It's also a fabulous nonfiction graphic novel, with layers of visuals that add significantly show more to the context of the narrative. show less

Started yesterday, finished this morning: this is the first adult picture book I've wanted to read, and as anticipated, I couldn't put it down.

I suppose you could shelve this in some rather specific way. The 'my grandparents were Nazis' memoir shelf. Or the 'ordinary people in the period 1930-1950 in Nazi Germany' shelf. For me, I'd put it under 'everybody should read this'. It asks all the questions, without coming up with any answers. But keeping those questions on the tip of our collective tongue is vital to stopping such horror in the future. We need an autistic attitude, we have to feel that these things have just happened, and could happen any moment again. I do believe that the reason we are seeing the resurgence of the extreme show more right now is at least partly because our memory is slipping, too many feel like it's a past that isn't connected to the present. But it is. By blood, by education, by culture, by belief, by greed and by all the bad features of being a human which are after all, the reason why we created society in the first place. To try to hold them in check.

Thank you Nora Krug, for your search for answers. It is your contribution to our never ending discussion about the meaning of life. show less

My grandmother is a German citizen living in the US. My uncle and cousins still live outside Nürnberg. For a place I have never been, it’s always felt like a second home. But how do you embrace the German side of your heritage when part of your family are post-WWII immigrants and your family were ostracized and called Nazis when they got to the US, a charge you can neither prove, nor disprove.

While I grew up stateside, dreaming of flying to Bavaria to revisit the sites of my grandmother’s childhood, Nora grew up in Germany and has lived in the US for well over a decade. We both, however, have set about the project of discovering the lives and roles of our grandparents and great-grandparents during World War II. While I still know show more very little about my own (I don’t even know my great-grandfather’s name), Nora embarks on an extensive research project to learn more about her own.

She struggles to feel like she belongs to either side of the Atlantic, as well as with crippling self-consciousness over her heritage. Is it okay to celebrate being German if your family members were potentially Nazis? While Nora follows her research, we, as readers, are given a visual treat in the form of her book. In a mixed-media, family scrapbook style, her memoir incorporates comic panels, full page illustrations, found items, and journal pages from her family members. It is absolutely stunning.

What Nora ultimately learns is the lengths that we, as humans, will go to in order to protect the ones we love and hold dear. Whether her grandparents were party members or not becomes almost secondary to the discussion of family and home that runs throughout her book. It’s a compelling read and one that will resonate with just about all people, regardless of heritage. show less

“Because there was no story, there was no history.” That line from Nora Krug has stayed with me since I finished this delightful book. We all yearn to know and understand both the history and story of our families. At times, there are difficult aspects to our family’s story. This book does a great job—through reflections and beautiful visuals—of describing one person’s efforts to both understand and reconcile the history of her own family who lived in Germany during WWII and the rise of the Nazis. The way the author describes her efforts to do so is applicable to our own need to address the difficulties of our past—as individuals, nations, even religious groups. Definitely recommend.