Monday, September 26, 2022

Belonging: A German Reckons with History and Home

Written by: Nora Krug

First line: Hansaplast is a brand of bandage developed in 1922.

Why you should read this book: Meticulous and emotional, this graphic memoir seeks to solidify evanescent memory, combining the author's own recollections with painstakingly acquired material artifacts and oral histories, as she comes to terms with her German family's experiences in the Third Reich. As a child, Krug learned in school of the Nazi regime and the Holocaust, a carefully constructed narrative of national culpability relegated to the past, but after coming to America as a young woman, she begins to wonder about the particulars of guilt: what were her own grandparents doing during the rise and power of National Socialism? Through trips to Germany, deep dives into bureaucratic records and resources, thrift shop finds, photographs, letters, and interviews, she begins to create a picture of her own ancestry and the roles of ordinary Germans in a time of great tragedy. 

Why you shouldn't read this book: Cowardice.

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