13
" As I listed to Walter, I slowly begin to accept that my knowledge will have limits, that I'll never know exactly what Willi thought, what he saw or heard, what he decided to do or not to do, what he could have done and failed to do, and why whether actively involved or not, by joining the Nazi Party, Willi had inevitably contributed to furthering the cause of a murderous regime. Would it make a difference in my life if I had found proof that Willi had never worn his uniform, that his wife had, in fact, been dispossessed of her milk business by the Nazis, that he hid his Jewish employer in a shed, or that he himself was half or quarter Jewish? Or would it be easier to navigate my shame if I had been able to prove his guilt, if I had learned that he had been a Nazi through and through, without the shadow of a doubt? "
― Nora Krug , Belonging: A German Reckons with History and Home
16
" Was the story my grandfather told her about the Jewish linen salesman really true? Or was it just a postwar family fantasy, like the one about Willi's having hidden his Jewish employer in the shed in his mother-in-law's backyard? Or like the one about Willi's supposed Jewish roots, 'because of the way he looked,' and because his mother, the woman on the cuff links, had had red hair? Even though nobody had ever found, or even looked for, the slightest evidence of Jewish ancestry in our family, the conjecture promised comfort to my guilt-ridden teenage mind. As a young woman traveling abroad, I would mention the possibility with ill-founded confidence when asked where I was from. "
― Nora Krug , Belonging: A German Reckons with History and Home
