The pastiche or collage graphic memoir by Nora Krug, Belonging, traces her increasing curiosity about her family’s involvement in supporting the Nazi Party and the persecution of Jewish people in the 1930-45 period. Was her grandfather a reluctant follower, compromising his values because the price of resistance was too high? Or was he, and other family members, active Nazis? Along the way, discussions of collective guilt, memory, ties to family, self-identity, etc. are explored. The collage and drawing work is striking and well-executed. It almost feels like a day trip through a long, extended, museum gallery. Super-interesting. My one quibble, that I can understand, but at the same time cannot understand, is why Nora’s father and sister AnneMarie never spoke again. Nora’s father’s childhood and adolescence was likely (from the graphic memoir) filled with abuse, and the trauma presumably remains even 70 years later.
-
Recent Posts
- Notes on 12 days in Bora-Bora, Moorea, and Tahiti
- Reading Feb 2026
- Reading Nov-Dec 2025 and Jan 2026
- AI as an existential threat – Kevane preliminary draft
- “What can it do?” A living list of computational problems that deep learning/AI/neural nets can or seems likely to “do” (at varying cost and efficacy)
Archives
Categories
Friends of African Village Libraries (I post regularly here)- Séance de jeudi récréatif à la bibliothèque communale de Karaba
- Mise à jour des ordinateurs du Centre Multimédia de Houndé
- Séance de lecture à haute voix à l’école de Lokihoun
- Reading FAVL-produced books in Koho library, Burkina Faso!
- Librarian meeting in Sumbrungu, Ghana
- Animation d’une séance de lecture guidée à la bibliothèque de Koho
- Don de jeu de scrabble au Centre de Lecture et d’Études de Béréba
- Immersion à la bibliothèque communautaire de Koho
- Organisation d’une séance de dessin à la bibliothèque de Koumbia
- Visite d’une équipe de ABVBF à la Semaine Nationale de la Culture