Her childhood experiences associated with The Holocaust were another source of guilt that haunts the narrator throughout the book . She says that smokestacks always make her think of Auschwitz , even though she did not really realize what the final solution was until after the war . The following passage captures the mental anguish from such awareness : “ … it is unbearable to unbearable to think the tiny word “ I ” in connection with the word “ Auschwitz . ” “ I ” in the past is conditional : I would have . I might have . I could have . Done it . Obeyed orders . ” One of the narratives of the book that reveals a problem with memory is the narrator 's return to her hometown in her adult years , during which she remembers events and emotions from her childhood . She is inconsistent about whether she experiences nostalgia for her hometown . On one occasion her daughter asks her if she was experiencing nostalgia and she says no , but in other instances in the book she says she did experience it . These positive feelings towards her hometown are problematized by her guilt towards her past . Scholars have described this process in terms of “ Heimat home/land and Heimweh homesickness . ” The Nazis widely invoked rhetoric of the homeland to justify policies such as annexation of land . Some scholars argue that this troubled relationship with the homeland because of Nazism caused Christa Wolf - or at least her narrator persona - to repress her positive thoughts towards her childhood home . Her return to “ L ” uncovers the complicated contradictories in her emotions
The Holocaust
The Holocaust
Patterns of Childhood