Belonging: A German Reckons with History and Home

Published in 2018, Belonging: A German Reckons with History and Home is a historical memoir written, illustrated, and compiled by Nora Krug. The memoir received the Society of Illustrators Silver Medal, the Art Directors Club Gold Cube, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and several German awards. Krug has received many accolades, including Illustrator of the Year. Belonging is her personal journey into her family’s past and its association with the Nazi regime. In addition, her memoir addresses the slow process of healing and coming to terms with the inevitability of being connected to the Holocaust. Through talking to relatives, friends, and fellow historians, Krug explores themes related to inherited history, belonging, and memory.

This guide uses the 2018 First Scribner Paperback edition of the memoir.

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature depictions of discrimination, physical/emotional abuse, and death.

Summary

Belonging: A German Reckons with History and Home is an exploration of family history in relation to the Nazi regime and the Holocaust. Nora Krug’s memoir combines text, illustrations, photographs, and scrapbooking, blending storytelling, artistic expression, and historical analysis. Krug returned to her homeland in Germany to visit the places her family lived, investigate the archives for evidence, and ask questions.

Krug begins by describing her life as a German woman living in Brooklyn, New York. She felt that she could not escape reminders of her German heritage and the implications that it continued to hold, and she even hid her accent in an attempt to avoid being confronted or asked about her relationship to the Nazis. The German word Heimat, which translates to “homeland,” is a concept that Krug finds elusive but seeks within herself and her culture and as a physical place.

Krug was not taught the positive side of German history in school and grew up with confusion surrounding Jews and the Holocaust. Like those around her, she inherited guilt from events that occurred before she was even born. This left her wondering how to reconcile this guilt and determine what German culture truly meant to her.

She lays out her fragmented understanding of her ancestry, piecing together documents, stories from relatives, and photographs. The history of her paternal uncle, Franz-Karl, who died in the war before her father was born, particularly intrigued her because she saw how her father, also named Franz-Karl, grew up in his brother’s shadow in the aftermath of World War II. His mother neglected him, and his sister, Annemarie, rejected him throughout his life. Through visiting her uncle’s grave in Italy, Krug’s family felt closer to him, but she wanted to know more about him—and about her maternal grandfather, Willi Rock, whose life was shrouded in confusing decisions. While Krug’s mother told her that her father could never have been a Nazi, Krug was unsure. Growing up in Karlsruhe, Krug recalls how certain German words like “race” and “hero” were taboo and how school trips to concentration camps intentionally instilled guilt, though often without conveying any deeper understanding. Her early curiosity met silence, since Germans of her parents’ generation were unwilling or unable to discuss their families’ roles during the war.

Krug began actively researching her family history, writing letters and reaching out to people online, searching through archives in Germany, and interviewing relatives, historians, and acquaintances. She discovered that her grandfather Willi may have been more involved with the Nazi regime than her family believed. He claimed to be a Mitläufer (a noncommittal follower), suggesting that he was not devoted to the Nazi ideology but instead became a member to avoid social or financial ramifications.

Willi’s official denazification documents show that he was a member of the Nazi Party for seven years between 1933 and 1940, and he claimed that he did so to take over a garage where actor Robert Wagner parked his car. In addition, Willi claimed that the Nazis took his wife’s milk business and that, as a result, he was even more desperate to earn money. Krug found evidence that suggested the milk business was never compromised, so she started to wonder if Willi was lying. Other sources, including a man named Albert, who had a Jewish wife, recalled Willi as a kind man who never turned anyone in. This conflicting information fueled Krug’s inner turmoil; she struggled to know how to feel about Willi and whether she should be angry or pity him.

Krug traveled to Külsheim, her father’s childhood hometown, where she uncovered more about her paternal uncle Franz-Karl, who died at age 18 while serving in the German army. Through the archives and conversations with people who knew him, Krug learned that Franz-Karl was a radiant young man but also a member of the SS. The family never discussed the extent of his involvement, and she wondered whether Franz-Karl was devoted to the Nazis. Krug visited the archives and collected old German photographs, notebooks, and memorabilia, treating each artifact as a clue and slowly putting the pieces together.

In the final chapters, Krug describes how she started to accept the emotional complexity of being connected to her family’s past. Meeting distant relatives like Iris and Annemarie, and returning to places like her father’s childhood farmhouse, gave her a stronger sense of Heimat. While realizing that she might never be able to fully understand her grandfather’s motivations or her uncle’s loyalties, she grappled with whether it was better to know if someone was guilty or to remain in doubt. Through conversations with her mother and with Walter (Albert’s son), she began accepting that moral clarity may not always be achievable and that she need not carry the weight of her ancestors. Krug became pregnant, a symbolic moment that represented continuity and the future. She started allowing her German accent to come through when she talked, and she demonstrated a gradual process of accepting her German heritage.