Patterns of Childhood is a highly complex novel, set in multiple time periods and locations, with the primary narratives revolving around the narrator's childhood in Nazi Germany, her return to her hometown as an adult, and her reflections while writing. The novel explores themes of memory, Nazism, and guilt, thus providing insight into the upbringings of children under totalitarian regimes, and problems that arise from such a childhood. The novel's main settings relate to major historical events during and following World War II. At the end of the war, the German-speaking population, including the narrator and her family, were forced to leave due to the invading Soviet army, and the area became Polish territory as a part of the Potsdam settlement. The narrator then lived the socialist German Democratic Republic, from where, thirty years later, she returned with her husband, brother and daughter to visit her childhood haunts.
