45 pages • 1-hour read
Belonging: A German Reckons with History and Home
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Chapters 8-11Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 8 Summary: “Fathomless Forests”
Krug’s aunt got in touch with Sabine, the granddaughter of Krug’s great uncle Edwin. Sabine sent over dozens of letters from Edwin while he was at war, and Krug enlisted the help of some seniors to translate them from the old Sütterlin style. Over time, Edwin’s letters became less hopeful and increasingly filled with sorrow. To represent the fading of Edwin’s hope, Krug illustrates the text through illustrations depicting Edwin slowly blurring and fading from existence. Edwin died at war, and his body was never found. Upon reading these letters, she finally let go of some of her shame and felt grief for her family’s loss. The Red Cross continues to search for what happened to Edwin and millions of other soldiers in World War II.
Chapter 9 Summary: “Melting Ice”
Krug and her father arrived in a town outside of Külsheim, where she sifted through the town archives. She found the mayor’s account of treatment toward Jews during the Holocaust (much of which appears to be lies), Christmas cards and letters sent from family members, and a letter to Annemarie about the mandatory selling of her land for military purposes. In addition, she found a letter detailing Franz-Karl (her uncle’s) death and how cherished he was as a member of the SS, which she describes as “a letter equal in kindness and in cruelty” (134). She thought of Franz-Karl’s family, their reaction to this letter, and how his mother said she had a dream about his death before it happened.
Chapter 10 Summary: “Looking for Traces”
Krug’s mother always denied any chance that Willi was a Nazi or a Nazi supporter, but upon learning that his brother was in the SS, Krug became desperate to find out more. In the archives in Karlsruhe, she found detailed information about Willi’s life and the events that occurred at the time. She questioned his involvement in various events and which side he must have been on, reasoning through each moment and imagining what Willi thought and did. She wondered who he voted for and whether he cheered when the Jews were taken out of Karlsruhe and put in a concentration camp.
She got in touch with an archivist, who promised to put together a file for her, and while she waited she looked for other information. She found a phone book from 1930 that opened to a portrait of actor Robert Wagner, and phone books from subsequent years helped her figure out what Willi was doing. She determined that he opened his driving school around 1934, which was much too soon for him to have been hiding anyone in a shed. In addition, she discovered that his office was directly across from the local synagogue, which the Nazis eventually ordered to be burned. She wondered if Willi saw the fire and where he was on Kristallnacht.
She includes an account from a man who was just a child at the time and remembers seeing Jewish people being taken away the following day. People in the crowd battered and screamed at them. In the 1940 phone book, the Jewish citizens are listed in their own category; by 1941, they are no longer in the phone book, and Karlsruhe was “the first to be JUDENFREI (Jew-free)” (159). Finally, she learned that her father’s office eventually neighbored a wine bar and includes a photograph of its elegant aesthetic. She imagines being able to sit in that bar with Willi and ask him everything she wants to know.
Chapter 11 Summary: “Soft Return”
Krug’s father took her to Külsheim, where she spent a few days on her own. She walked down the streets and sensed her father’s difficult childhood as she went. She walked past the fountain where the day after Kristallnacht the Nazis forced the remaining Jews to submerge themselves. She met up with Egon, a historian who took her to the empty place where the synagogue used to be and the cemetery in which the last Jewish person to be buried was in 1938. Egon gave Krug her family tree, and she discovered that several people in her family died of some sort of fall.
In her hotel, she looked over the fountain and later met another historian named Hans at her great-grandfather’s restaurant, Rose. Hans was passionate about Jewish history and preserving it, and he collected every piece of information he could find to create a compendium of Jewish history in Külsheim. He interviewed townspeople, who claimed at first that they couldn’t remember or weren’t there but gradually revealed details. In addition, Hans introduced Krug to a man named Theo, who knew her Uncle Franz-Karl and said he was happy and a natural leader. Theo believed that Franz-Karl was automatically enlisted in the SS. She also met Walda, the widow of her father’s cousin, who related her experiences growing up during the Nazi regime. Walda also revealed that her grandmother was inclined toward extramarital affairs, bringing up the question of whether her grandfather was someone else entirely. Despite all her investigating and the people she met, she still did not entirely understand her uncle or his connection to the Nazis.
Chapters 8-11 Analysis
Krug deepens her exploration of Germany’s fraught legacy, continuing to use symbols and motifs to illustrate her conflicting emotions and the contradictory information she learned. One of the most prominent symbols is the fountain in Külsheim, which serves as a reminder of Nazism, oppression and persecution, thematically underscoring The Connections Between Collective and Personal Memory. Krug describes it vividly:
I can see the deserted town hall square and its medieval fountain. Hot-pink geraniums hang down from it like thirsty tongues. Bearded sandstorm faces spout water from their yawning mouths. Right behind the fountain, a crucified Jesus is watching, just as he watched that day in 1939. It says in chiseled letters beneath his bleeding feet, ES IST VOLLBRACHT (It Is Done) (170).
These chapters continue to thematically develop The Personal and Moral Implications of Inherited History as Krug describes grappling with the complexities of her relatives’ involvement in the war. Initially, when reading Edwin’s letters, she refused to feel pity for him, but as she dug deeper, she began to feel genuine grief—not only for Edwin, who was never found, but also for her uncle Franz-Karl and for all those who fought and died for an unworthy cause. She discovered that despite Franz-Karl’s connection to the SS, his death profoundly affected the family and thus her own upbringing. In Külsheim, she learned that Franz-Karl’s enlistment in the SS was by default, complicating her moral judgment about him.
Finding One’s Homeland and a Place to Belong becomes a major theme in this section, especially as Krug reflects on the alienation she felt from many members of her family and the setting where they grew up. She notes that Karlsruhe was the first German city to be declared “Jew free” and has a centuries-long history of persecution. While in Külsheim, she was told that she resembled her great-grandfather, and this moment brought feelings of disconnection to the forefront of her consciousness: “Everybody here, except me, knows where I belong. Geographically. Historically. Genetically” (178). This reflection illustrates her struggle to figure out her place in the world.
Krug’s exploration of collective and personal memory continued as she read Edwin’s letters, which allowed her to feel grief for the first time about her family’s loss. Edwin’s disappearance left a deep scar on the family, and his wife never remarried or declared him dead. Continuing her search for answers, Krug interviewed people who shared memories of Kristallnacht and other key events. Despite all this new information, however, she remained unsure whether Franz-Karl was a true Nazi supporter and had to gradually come to terms with this reality. Krug maintained a methodical approach to uncovering her family’s history despite the emotional overtones of the experience. She sought out a local historian to learn about Külsheim under Nazi rule, choosing to begin her research outside her family to avoid immediate emotional confrontation. Her curiosity was unyielding, and she approached her investigation with the mindset of a detective, carefully piecing together facts, documents, and oral histories.
Krug’s stylistic choices enhance the emotional impact of her memoir. When describing her father’s cousin recounting the letter about Franz-Karl’s death, she notes, “As she speaks, the past reveals itself as if through a block of melting ice” (136), using a simile to emphasize the effect of this revelation. In addition, Krug also uses a repetitive technique to question and reason through Willi’s actions during Kristallnacht: “If he was curious, he would have walked toward the crowd” (153). Chapter 10 is filled with suspense, describing how Krug unwrapped layers of information about Willi’s office and the surrounding area, and ending on a cliffhanger regarding Willi’s potential Nazi affiliations. Despite the seriousness of the topic at hand, Krug occasionally includes humor, as when she notes that four relatives died from some sort of “fall,” joking that this misfortune runs in the family. Krug notes, “Over time, fragmentary stories, photographs, and documents rose back to the surface like bloated corpses. Memories turned into legends, and sometimes, legends turned into memories” (173), demonstrating the shifting nature of historical truth through a morbid yet relevant simile.
The setting shifts between past and present as Krug recounts visiting key locations of her family’s history. In Karlsruhe, she visited her parents and accessed archives, finding out more about her grandfather and uncle. When she arrived in Külsheim, she notes that she could “feel my father’s unhappy childhood creep up through the soles of [her] feet” (164), indicating the power of collective memory.
The illustrations and photographs add depth to Krug’s narrative. One series shows Edwin’s letters, accompanied by illustrations of his face slowly blurring and fading, symbolizing his mental deterioration and physical disappearance during the war. This visual metaphor for loss and trauma is intense and hard-hitting. Another page, titled “Soldiers at Play” (139), shows German soldiers engaged in ordinary leisure activities, forcing readers to confront the dissonance between their humanity and their roles in an inhumane regime and thus conveying the dichotomy of good and evil.
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