Weimar, Germany

Weimar, Germany is the location for most of the sequences encompassing Anna’s life as a young adult. Weimar, Germany is Anna’s hometown. It is where her daughter, Trudy is conceived and later born and where the mother and daughter reside throughout wartime in Germany.

New Heidelberg, Minnesota

After Anna meets an American soldier, Jack, at the end of the war in Germany, the two marry and move to new Heidelberg, Minnesota. New Heidelberg is strikingly similar to Weimar. When she arrives in New Heidelberg, Anna is faced with xenophobia. Trudy recognizes this throughout her childhood and leaves the city as soon as she can, feeling she and her mother are never truly accepted.

Minneapolis, Minnesota

After growing up in new Heidelberg, Trudy moves to Minneapolis as an adult. There, she works as a Professor of German History. Much of the sequences of the novel concerning...