„Belonging“ in the fourth generation: A podcast

I was standing on the rooftop of my friends' apartement building – the only person I knew so far in the city. I had just moved here from Berlin to study. I didn't know anyone. No one knew me. (…)

Am elderly woman sitting in a lounge chair had overheard our conversation. "Where are you from" she asked me.

"I'm from Germany."

"That's what I thought."

"Have you ever been to Germany?" I asked.

"Yes. A long, long time ago." She avoided eye contact. And then I understood.

She went on to tell me about how she survived the concentration camp because one of the female guards had rescued her from the gas chamber sixteen times at the last moment. (…)

A familiar heat began to form in the pit of my stomach. How do you react, as a German, standing across from a human being who reveals this memory to you?

With this personal experience Nora Krug introduces her story about German identity, which hurts, but is very relatable to whole generations of Germans. In the graphic novel „Belonging“ the author writes about German inherited collective guilt, family history and what it means to clear it up. During this journey, the author asks herself the question: What does it actually mean to be „German“?

Nora Krug is a German author and illustrator that was born in Karlsruhe in 1972. She is married to a Jewish American and has been living in the USA for several years, frequently dealing with the topics of nationalsocialism. Since her parents were both born in 1946 and thus after the time of the Third Reich, Nora Krug belongs to the so-called third generation. In her family, it was her grandparents and an uncle who were involved in the crimes of the National Socialists.

The fourth generation's approach – A binational talk

Inspired by Nora Krug's self reflecting quest for answers, we decided to discuss her questions from a fourth generation's approach. As we read „Belonging“ we could relate to some of Nora Krug's approaches, but at the same time, we felt that our generation views their heritage from a different perspective and therefore needs to express their voice. That's why we teamed up in a binational team of Germans and Israelis to find our belonging in history and created the Podcast „From Tel Aviv to Stuttgart: Where do we belong?“.

The podcast

The binational team

Episode One: Collective guilt in Germany's young generation

In the first episode of the Podcast „From Tel Aviv to Stuttgart: Where do we belong?“ our host Julia and her guests Leonie (from Germany) and Itay (from Israel) discuss, if and why there is a collective guilt feeling for the Holocaust present in today's young generation and how the Holocaust still affects the German national identity.

Episode Two: An Israeli perspective on the binational relationship

In the second episode of the podcast „From Tel Aviv to Stuttgart: Where do we belong?“ Itay (from Israel) shares his perspective on the relationship of both countries with Julia and Leonie ( both from Germany).

Episode Three: The mutual perceptions of Germans and Israelis

In the third episode of the Podcast „From Tel Aviv to Stuttgart: Where do we belong?“ our host Leonie and her guests Julia (from Germany) and Itay (from Israel) discuss, what they learned from the project and their previous disussions and have a look at an ineresting survey by the Bertelsmann foundation about the mutual perceptions of Germans and Israelis.

• 00:25 Summary of the learnings from the first two episodes
• 14:51 Short summary of the Middle East conflict
• 20:18 Talk with expert Stephan Vopel and guests about the Bertelsmann Stiftung study