Elfriede's arc isn't one I've revisited as recently as, say, Sarah MacNaughtan's (MacNaughtan is one model for the protagonist of my current big novel project), so my memory of her isn't as strong as it would have been back when I originally posted this in 2013. But what I remember about her narration is just the in-between level on which she understands what's going on: she's at that brink between childhood and adolescence/adulthood, and her priorities, the way she thinks about the war, really reflect that. Her world is still so circumscribed (her diary entries involve things like making cakes with her grandmother), yet she's dealing directly with events that are so huge and far-reaching. It's formative, for her, quite literally.