Their musings about how and why people stayed in a country under such terrible conditions were what I hated most. I knew it was ignorance, not insight, that prompted these questions. They asked because they hadn't smelled he air raid smoke or the scent of singed flesh on their own balconies; they couldn't fathom that such a dangerous place could sill harbor all the feelings of home.
Ana is only ten years old when war breaks out in Dubrovnik and although everything changes in the blink of an eye, her love for her home city and her country does not. It is all she has known, and there are many people just like her. Outsiders look at the way that war is ravaging the city and wonder why anyone would choose to stay; escape may be dangerous but would it not be preferable to staying and living in these conditions? Ana believes that it is more dangerous to leave. Outsiders don't understand what the smell of death can do to a city and its people.
This passage also demonstrates that home is where the heart is. Yes there is death all around. Yes, nothing is the same. Yet in many ways nothing has changed, and Ana's memories of growing up in her home city have not changed. She still loves her city and her country; it is just not a country in the same state that it was. Her frustration comes when outside observers cannot understand why she still loves it, even when ravaged by war and smelling of death and destruction.
The realization that my parents, too, felt pain and fear frightened me more than any strangers could.
When you are a child, there is a certain safety and security in knowing that your parents are fearless, and can therefore protect you from everything. They are not scared of monsters under the bed, so they can make the monsters go away. They are not scared of the girl in class who bullies you, or the teacher who doesn't like you. They can protect you from them. They don't mind the thunder, and so when they hold your hand through a thunderstorm you know they can protect you. Your parents are not scared and so the scary thing can't hurt you.
When Ana realizes that her parents are scared of what is happening around them. This emphasizes to Ana just how perilous their situation now is. They are not people who are easily frightened and the fact that they are frightened now lets Ana know that they are in incredible danger. The situation they are now in is something that her parents cannot protect her from. They cannot hold her hand and make the scary thing go away. The war is beyond her parents' control and the fact that they cannot make the danger go away is far more terrifying to her than any outside threat could ever be.
