Escaping Wolf

On page 49, the Ephraim tells his children about the cowboys and the Indians where the cowboys are the German SS and the Indians are the Jews. The little girl dreams later that night that "my father is an Indian chief. His name is Escaping Wolf." (49) Since the second sentence of the chapter is "We take a special interest in the names of the chiefs..." (47) I paid particular attention to Friedman's choice to call her father"Escaping Wolf." The "escaping" part brings to mind how Ephraim pulls over on a highway and points out a forest to his children. "Great woods to escape into. So thick and so deep. They'd never find you there, not the ghost of a chance." (26) I realize that the father is always escaping. The whole book is about how his past--his survival and escape from the camps--consumes him. When he is with his family, he constantly tells them about being in the camp. The "wolf" part I believe comes from when Friedman was at the zoo and saw a wolf that "has camp" (2) in its eyes, like her father. Also, the wolf is often seen as a solitary figure. A person like this is often called a "Lone Wolf." Ephraim, even though he has a family and they live together, strikes me as being a lonely man. He is the only one in the book (so far) that "has camp" (6) and throughout the book tries to explain to his children what camp is like. Though the mother (whom he finds a partner in) has gone through the camps as well, there is no mention of her "having camp." He is the only one that displays obvious symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. The image of Ephraim as an "Escaping Wolf" is a fitting one, and using it, Friedman shows how the camps have affected her father to such an extent.