"It makes you sick."
"Then why are you watching?"
"Because I want to understand. But I understand it less now than I did then." (23)
"My father is lucky to have Pinky, who understands him more than we ever will." (30)
"How?" I ask anxiously.
"How?" asks Simon. But we get no reply. (46)
It seems to me that the narrator and her brothers really want to sympathize with their father, but he refuses to give them that chance. When they say they're feeling hunger, sadness, or pain, Ephraim immediately shuts them down with "You don't understand." Ephraim does tell his children many stories that help them understand what he went through better, but he leaves large chunks of gray area. When they ask strings of clarifying questions (as in the fourth quotation I cited), Ephraim often leaves them without answers. They're left to interpret his stories as they will, often resulting in them misunderstanding vital pieces of information as illustrated when the narrator uses the phrase "It takes the SS to dream up a thing like that" (14) like a common idiom.
Ephraim himself wants to understand the Holocaust as much as his children do, as conveyed in my second quotation. The difference is that he has resources like libraries, radio, and the television to help inform him. He knows how and where to get information, whereas the extent of his children's knowledge is pretty much up to him, his wife, and school (and what kind of an elementary school would be giving in-depth lectures on the horrors of WWII?).
I think Ephraim wants his children to understand the gravity of the Holocaust, but he's too caught up in his own painful memories to take the time to explain basic information to them. For instance, he mentions "camp" on a daily basis, yet the narrator doesn't quite know what "camp" entails. As we discussed in class, she equates camp with people like Sigismund the Flogger, but one of the other main points she's ascertained about camp is that there weren't fried eggs there. If Ephraim would only explain clearly the basic outline of the Holocaust, maybe his children would appreciate his stories more.
But maybe that's unfair to ask of him. Maybe we should pity him, let him wallow in his misery, and ask his wife to explain the Holocaust to the children. After all, she does seem much more clear-headed. Personally, I don't as much about who informs the children as much as I care that someone does. They know their father is different, that they're different. I want them to know why. During one of these chapters, I want the phrase "You don't understand" to be followed by "... so let me explain."
I'm glad that someone else feels the same way that I do about Ephraim's incapability at explaining himself. Over the course of the book, I've grown increasingly frustrated with him. I do understand that he has gone through something unimaginably painful that is obviously hard to talk about. But I also feel that he treats his children as if they already possess some kind of background knowledge on the Holocaust. On countless occasions, he tells a story, and when the child doesn't understand, Ephraim reacts with exasperation. He constantly seems to compare whatever the children go through with his own experiences in the Holocaust, which ends up downplaying any of the problems the kids may have. He expects the children to have a mature attitude about the whole thing; at times he treats them as if they were adults. I understand if it is hard for him to explain the Holocaust, but he seems to have no problem sharing snippets of it with his children anyway. Yet if he doesn't tell the experience as a whole, he only leaves the children feeling confused and alienated. I think that he should either properly sit them down and explain it, or not talk about it at all. By sharing only glimpses of his memories, he does more harm than good. It may be helping him deal with his past, but it is in no way helping his children, and I feel that that is unfair of him as a father.
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