The cognitive dissonance was a physical weight. How could the same hand that wrote poetry about Heimat —that soulful, untranslatable German longing for home—also hold the pen of the oppressor?
Belonging: A German Reckons with History and Home by Nora Krug is an award-winning graphic memoir that explores family secrets and the weight of inherited guilt from Nazi Germany. Using a scrapbook-style format, Krug investigates her ancestors' roles during World War II to understand her own identity and what it means to be German. belonging a german reckons with history and home pdf
Historian Marianne Hirsch coined the term “post-memory” to describe the relationship that the children of survivors (and perpetrators) have with trauma they never experienced directly. Krug embodies this. She has nightmares about the Holocaust. She feels shame when she hears German accents in English-speaking countries. The book argues that even if you didn’t pull the trigger, the silence of your grandfather—who might have been a bureaucrat or a soldier—becomes a prison. The cognitive dissonance was a physical weight
: Narrated by the author, available for approximately $11.24 on Audible. She has nightmares about the Holocaust