Hansaplast, невід’ємний атрибут дитинства з розбитими колінами, стає символом далекої батьківщини. Саме з пластира починається її «альбом німецьких речей емігрантки, що тужить за домом»: цей пластир дуже міцний, він надійно захищає, але його боляче відривати, а ще, припускаємо ми, він закриває рану, тож ніколи не знати, скільки гною може виявитися під ним. Krug therefore looked into the history of her father's and her mother's side. Like many other Germans, her ancestors were neither Resistance fighters nor part of Hitler's close circle. But to find out that someof them couldofficially be classified as "Mitläufer" — followers of the Nazi regime — was apainful revelation in her investigation:"I grew up with this narrative of my grandfather Willi as somebody who had voted for the Social Democrats all his life, who were the Nazis' major political enemies. So there had always been this myth of him having nothing to do at all with the Nazi regime," Nora Krug: Replacing German 'guilt' with 'responsibility' to defend democracy. "I saw myself confronted with a side of him that was uncomfortable to witness — of somebody who was opportunistic in his choices, and a bit of a coward."

Germany’s current government announced in March this year that it would establish the first ever Heimat ministry, though appropriately for such a conceptually overloaded word, there has yet to be any announcement on what such a ministry would do. Krug’s approach, by contrast, is refreshingly materialist. Krug, who was born in 1977 in Karslruhe and is now based in Brooklyn, felt that despite the educational efforts to reveal the most painful episodes of hercountry's history, the details of what had happened in one's own family and surroundings often remained somewhat taboo.Mixed feelings about this one. It was really interesting in a certain personal context to me - my best friend lives in Germany since 2000, we both had granddads that fought in war against nazis and we often have conversations about Germans and their historical past and especially WWII times as well as about nowadays.

This graphic memoir is a mix of text, illustrations, photographs, and art. It's not an easy read, but is well worth the time it takes to do so.On an individual level, Heimat is the place you don’t have to explain yourself: where you feel comfortable, where people know you, where you belong. But if your Heimat is somewhere you believe you belong but others see you as a perpetual outsider, can it truly be your Heimat? And what happens to those who have lost theirs, who settle somewhere new seeking another Heimat? Such questions have become increasingly urgent in recent years as more than a million refugees came to Germany in 2015 and 2016. Nora Krug grew up as a second-generation German after the end of the Second World War, struggling with a profound ambivalence towards her country's recent past. Travelling as a teenager, her accent alone evoked raw emotions in the people she met, an anger she understood, and shared. For what reason? She's not sure. Perhaps to absolve them in her mind; perhaps to adequately blame them. Whatever the reasoning, I felt every bit of the author’s desperation to find out about her grandparents. I sat along as she dug into their history and hoped so very much that they weren’t guilty of the worst crimes. I, too, wanted it to not be them. I wanted them to have been the good guys. But these last few months, I’ve often found myself thinking about the topic—not as it relates to Germans’ Heimat, but my own. Heimat came to mind when, as the pandemic intensified this spring, I felt a visceral but sustained urge to return to a place where I feel fully at home, where everyone understands me, where I don’t need to speak German or navigate unfamiliar bureaucracy, where I would be able to be physically near many of the people in my life I care about most. For those who don’t fit into the AfD’s idyllic, German (and implicitly white) concept of Heimat, the word, and its presence so ubiquitous it appears in the name of a government ministry, can feel less like a nostalgic longing for hometown beer halls and grandma’s schnitzel and more like an implied threat of exclusion. Mentioning the word to a progressive-minded German might prompt cringing (by even those who may use the word casually when they describe visiting family for the weekend).

A highly original and powerful graphic novel that works on many levels...an unflinching examination of what we mean when we think of identity, of history and home. The result is a book that is as informative as a history and as touching as a novel. The Financial Timeskad nacizmo ir Vokietijos antram pasauliniam kare istorija pasidaro tokia įvairiapusė ir įvairiabriaunė, toks kitokia nei dabartinis "ir aš buvau Aušvice" bumas, biški nupiginantis šiaip jau baisius dalykus. Pasakoja, kiek įmanomų elgesio kare, dalyvavimo nacizme, šeimos iširimo arba išlikimo variacijų, kiek individualių istorijų ir kaip sunku - bet įmanoma - jas atsekti po 50 metų. Von Unwerth has a peculiar talent for getting famous and beautiful women (Claudia Schiffer, Madonna, Naomi Campbell, Rihanna, Kate Moss) to remove their inhibitions – and frequently their underwear – while retaining control. Her images are often provocatively sexual, but it’s usually her subjects who are doing the provoking. “I always give them something to do,” she confides. “When somebody’s not moving I get bored. I take two pictures and I say: ‘Great, I have it now.’ But I love the body in movement. I like the nude body in movement.” One thing most people can agree on is that the way the majority of Germans have reacted to the atrocities of the Second World War should serve as a model for the rest of us. But where is the line between "making sure it can't happen again" and feeling nothing but shame for your country, your heritage, your family, for things that happened before you were even born?