Belonging By NORA KING
Monica Reads: A Review by Monica West
Belonging is amazing. Author Nora Krug was born after World War II in Karlsruhe, Germany.
Nora is also an artist and uses her skill to enlighten the reader of her emotional quest to find out about her family’s involvement or not in the Jewish massacre.
She was a transplant to the United States as a young woman. Her multiple trips back to Germany to visit where she grew up, to find long-lost family members and to find a way to accept what Germans were taught about Heimat. Heimat is a German word describing where they first came from and why.
Between the visual graphics she uses to tell the story of her quest and her descriptions of finding out how Germans, then and now, handle the extraordinary guilt associated with being a German, this book is mesmerizing.
The price for the German people was and still is evident. What I found so interesting is that when the war started to wane and the soldiers took over, everyone seems to have been somewhere else when something bad happened to the local Jewish population. If you want to learn something about the price of war, you really need to read this book.
I will not say it is entertaining. It was extremely thought provoking and showed how easily people can be corrupted. How to handle this feeling of guilt is the recurring theme of Nora’s quest to find her roots.
The cost for her is enormous because in the United States she marries a Jewish man. This is not a book to overlook. You will be thinking about it for a long time no matter your individual heritage.
Monica West reviews books for InDepthNH.org. Monica is known for her love of history and her lifelong love for reading. She has a bachelor’s degree in History, with a minor in English. “My years of reading for leisure and pleasure have given me the insight to read a book and analyze the author’s baggage, cargo and ability to write the language of his/her mind and utilize the gift of prose to educate and entertain the reader. Go get a book, read it and enjoy the adventure.” Contact Monica at mawest@tds.net