Belonging: A German Reckons with History and Home

Krug explores the story of her grandfather Willi’s life, using the few snippets she learned from family and the few heirlooms she collected. This is her attempt at getting her family history “in order,” a value she ascribes to German culture and explains through the invention of the binder in 1896.

She has few memories of her grandpa but remembers every detail of her grandparents’ apartment. She illustrates the story of her grandpa’s young life, using a cartoon style with a green wash. Her mother says she does not believe that her father was a Nazi. Willi worked for a time as a chauffeur for a Jewish man and supposedly hid him from the Nazis in his shed during the Holocaust (though Krug was unable to verify this information).

From the time he was 18, Willi took care of his younger brother and worked as a car mechanic. When the war began, Willi was fortunate enough to remain in Germany and work training soldiers to drive for most of the war. Willi’s younger brother, Edwin, moved to Switzerland and started a family but was soon called back to serve on the front lines for Germany in Russia. Willi and Edwin’s neighborhood was destroyed by bombs, including the shed where the Jewish man was hiding.