Her obsession takes her from her home in Brooklyn, where she lives with her Jewish husband, to the Germany where her parents were born and raised, in search of documents and testimony. The narrative is a deeply personal-and deeply moving-dive into national legacy and family history, with more text than most graphic novels and a graphic presentation that mixes documentary photographs, illustrations, and memories that predate the author’s birth. She also felt stigmatized by the common stereotype of her as a German and what this seemed to reflect about her emotions, personality, and overall identity. Krug felt blood ties to her ancestors but had no idea how deeply (or not) they had been entangled. Her maternal grandfather had also served with the Nazis, and the level of his support remained something of a mystery. Her father’s brother had died as a teenage Nazi soldier, and their sister and her father had since been estranged. Neither of her parents seems to know much about their familial Nazi ties or to be inquisitive about learning more. Yet she feels drawn to what happened before, a legacy that amounts to a search for identity, a pilgrimage to the homeland that risks guilt and shame. Not only was Krug too young to have memories of the Nazi era, but her parents weren’t born until 1946. A graphic artist of German descent tries to come to terms with her family’s history before she was born.

Belonging nora krug sparknotes