Page split idea (one single central idea) panel create rhythm right down corner: bigger split (end of every page) emphasis on final panel
Type: Non-fiction, graphic memoir
Author: Nora Krug
born in Germany
third generation of WWII
Location: Town of Karlsruhe
Visual element: collage
Text image interact in different ways
different illustration technique
Notice:
use of photography
essay-like thought and self-reflection instead of action
Hamsaplast: safest thing in the world, it won't come off until wound has fully healed. (hearts to tear it off to look at your scar)
Heimat: landscape with sense of familiarity, imported through generations, born into, shape identity
Mushrooms
derWald: forest feel protected
New to New York: everything possible (p12) The survivor: a female guard rescued her from gas chamber 16 time, and exhibit "merciless violence toward everyone else"
Chapter: 1~4 (p18-19)
Konzentrationslager: concentration camp Jews:
whether they are evil?
killed Jesus according to elementary teacher
assume Jews didn't exist out of Bible
extincted species
War:
"a loud and deadly event"
parent don't engage in war
nothing heroic about being a soldier
surprise: other countries could still be at war
Church:
Women:
Jude star:
Analyze Hitler's speech (p32)
German
"typically German": describe unfriendly, narrow-minded (p 34)
Vergangenheitsbewaltigung: come to terms with one's political past
zusammengehorigkelts-gefuhl: identifying with a group and believing an idea larger than oneself (American cultural identity, not our own)
Gaps in education:
didn't learn about resisting in Nazi regime
didn't learn about Jew's resist
didn't learn about Allied bombings
associate Jude structly with Holocaust
Schubert's Winterreise: a song for resist Klemens Wenzel von Metternich's regime
German on TV:
Author's husband's mother: assimilated German Jews
"Its about the time that German feel confident about their country again" (p49)
"Her German pride makes me uncomfortable, but it also makes me envious" (p51)
A mail: for PBS to broadcast unknown German suffer (p52)
World Cup 2014
discuss appropriate display of German flag
"Deutschland-Nein Danke" (Germany - no thank you)
anti-fascist movement
German win: "a soccer massacre of highest order"
(p61) bright color (p64) drawing book of uncle, Hitler's solider
Leitz binder: German consulate's binder of choice
Mother: discovered her father (grandfather Willi) may be Nazi Anna: grandmother, died of heart attack
Willi:
got a car from emplyer
being driving teacher for army
Edwin: willi's brother
apprenticeship as stonecutter
Switzerland for family
ordered back to German, fight in Russia
Edwin returned
allied bomb attack, destroyed old neighborhood
train back to Russia
History of Külsheim (a town): history of treating Jews (p99)
Alois: father side's grandfather
died falling of a tractor
actor playing Nazi comedy
Father
Author try to search history given photos, comments from web:
+-
"NOBODY pays TOP DOLLAR for something this ordinary"
Hong Kong sells small Russian house to shot with
Hair Style post
Grandfather of father side - from image
Heer uniform (regular army)
Unteroffizier, NCO rank
less than 6 years seniority
"Not a very high rank, then. I am relieved."
Willi:
stationed in West Flanders, not always "home front"
taken as a prisoner of war
worked for Jews
"The fact that he had been punished for having been a German soldier was particularly comforting" (p112)
Flea market find: much like museums (p116)
Annemarie: father's previous relationship
Annemarie's son respond my email
names and tradition remain (p123)
Homwtown:
"Wouldn't you want to visit it sometime?"
"What for ?!"
"Its your HEIMAT"
"No"
"THEN?"
Very hand-written words, with correction marks (p129) A series of letter and Edwin Rock's death (p131)
COGNITIVE DISSONANCE https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh/%E8%AA%8D%E7%9F%A5%E5%A4%B1%E8%AA%BF
November 11, 1918, WWI ends January 30, 1933. Hitler Appointed German Leader September 1, 1939, War begin
arrive at Kulsheim's neighboring village Document: questionnaire about how Jewish encounter during and after war. Document: 1939 accusing great-grandfather Heinrich of having charged 25 Pfg. per beer, instead of 20. Document: US military questionnaire belonging to Nazi (answer: no one) Document: request at 1941 all boy from 1924 - 1929 to join Hitler Youth
Document: "fallen soldiers" uncle die in Russia (error) Document: 1961, government want training land for soldier, but aunt want more compensation Document: Franz-Karl Krug's death in Italy
Photography: soldiers at play
Willi (mother's father) and Karin fear about war and love peace. "police is a nasty job"
Willi always voted for Social Democratic Party (Nazi: National Socialist German Worker's Party)
Nazi claim 99% voted for Adolf Hitler
Looking for grandfather's file:
father is in the SS
father is a driving school teacher (page 156)
phone number: 3935 "What is I dialed this number now? Would I recognize the sound of his voice?"
"People back then weren't very political"
"Women washed their laundry by hand"
"Men were worried about not being able to feed their families"
Maslow's hierarchy of needs
Why people fight for Nazi?
aren't very political
hierarchy of needs
unable to see war??
Synagogue and firefighters: "A day later, order was given to set the synagogue on fire a second time. But we are firemen, not arsonists, so the synagogue didn't burn again" (page 161)
often look into history, we missed different voice of people
we often generalizing people in to one big group (a big group of bad people), and that is what the author thinks in the beginning - mentioning the name of Germany is disgraceful
Jewish citizens are listed in a separate category in phone book
arrests of Jews were hardly noticed by the general public on 1940 (page 169) JUDENFREI: Jew-free (Jewish citizens section disappear from phone book)
Maybe since there is no internet, people are a lot more influenced by propaganda and government issue than actual every day people.
Meet with Egon (online people)
Rose: great-grandfather's restaurant
Interview in the 1980s
"Be careful" one man warned him years ago "or you'll be the first to be gone when the Nazis are back", people avoid politics
uncle: blond, happy, leader, athletic
joined the SS, memorable evening
1945 after surrounding
[You mean Alois wasn't my grandfather?]
15% of all Germans joined the Nazi Party, and my grandfather was among them
Question: why did Willi join Nazi only months after voting for Social Democrats
Join Nazi to buy a driving school (page 202)
22000 tons of demolition bombs, stores looted by German and the French, women raped and aborted. Nazi into denazification camp, Karlsruhe ruled by Americans.
Willi eared tenth of he had before
cars stoken by the French
diagnose Karin with alnorishment
Evidence that Willi does not practice Nazi
neighborhood people don't see Willi as Nazi
have no office
didn't vote for Nazi
never wear uniform
Willi befriended a concentration camp survivor (known Communist in 1942)
Evidence that Willi is practicing Nazi
Theory
people are lying
commemorate a moment in history
remembered as a patriot
uniform look impressive
tradition
(but the letter is convincing page 216)
He was also a member of the National Socialist People's Welfare organization. But finally classified as FOLLOWER
"I don't blame her. Everyone has just one father" (page 223)
Uncle: Willi's child, who wrote about the poisonous mushroom, died in war.
mother: "felt unburdened by it in a way" (after seeing Jewish women's letter) (page 240)
"I did wonder why he though that is was really necessary to join the party. He was no hero. But I am still convinced that he never did anything really horrible"
the fact that she has to "relieve" feels strange to me
Yes Jews are killed and that is bad enough
Yet there isn't emotional sorrow for Native American, or perhaps people who died in the war fighting for Nazi (are they innocent, too? How many of us can resist propaganda at the age of creating drawing assignments?)
Albert W.: who wrote the letter for Willi
deported to Theresienstadt
liberated and returned Karlstuhe
emigrated to New York City
died in 1988?
Looking for children:
Walter: the girl who wrote the letter
Walter's mother married to Christian man ("privileged marriage")
didn't have to wear Star of David, not sent to camp
Organisation Todt (concentration working camp)
Walter's father know he will die: eat a lot of sugar before medical exam - diabetes, "unfit for work in the Todt unit"
1945 Selma lost privilege
"My sense is that people who left Germany early on ended up resenting it more than those who stayed longer and saw that the Germans suffered, too. Germany paid a lot of reparations" (p 254)
AUTHOR's PERSONAL RETHINK (p255)
Go to Annemarie's house in Kulsheim (daughter of Willi) Maria: grandmother
Many letters and photography about died uncle Franz-Karl
he was 17 when he was drafted
18 when he was killed (page 273)
Who would we be as a family if the war had never happened (page 277)
"HEIMAT can only be found again in memory, that it is something that only begins to exist once you have lost it"
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