Girl in the Blue Coat

In these chapters, Hanneke is surprised by the realization that things are not as they seem, highlighting The Necessity and Danger of Keeping Secrets. First, she realizes that she made the wrong assumptions about Mirjam. Next, she realizes she made the wrong assumption about Mrs. de Vries. This points to the complex dynamics of class and ethnicity at play in the novel. The ethnic Dutch and “Aryan-appearing” individuals, such as Hanneke, must pretend to be collaborators if they want to help their Jewish friends and neighbors evade capture. For instance, Mrs. de Vries must mirror her friends’ antisemitic remarks because otherwise, she faces suspicion. While her words earlier in the novel are uncomfortable, they allow her to continue harboring her Jewish neighbors, showing that actions and words can be very different.

Hanneke’s biases come into play when she learns the truth in Chapter 19. Hanneke, from the beginning, presents herself as an unreliable narrator: someone who hides the truth from others and even herself in order to survive. When she learns that Mrs. de Vries is not a Nazi sympathizer but rather a dedicated member of the resistance, she realizes that others, too, must lie to survive and avoid detection. Past rudeness on her and her children’s part is revealed as protectiveness and a cover for her true feelings. This realization helps Hanneke along her journey of Personal Transformation During Wartime. As she realizes that many people, from Ollie’s friends to Mrs. de Vries, are not what they seem, she moves closer to confronting her own defense mechanism of lying as a means of self-punishment. Hanneke’s internal realization also helps move the plot forward in these chapters. As these truths are revealed, Hanneke is convinced that she is closer than ever to finding Mirjam.

Mina’s photographs introduce an important historical reality and symbol of the larger context of World War II into the novel. Photography played a crucial role in World War II as a powerful tool for documentation, propaganda, and communication. Photographs captured the stark realities of the battlefield, the resilience of soldiers, and the impact of the war on civilians, providing an unfiltered glimpse into the war’s human cost. The photographs in Girl in the Blue Coat also highlight the importance of Jewish people documenting their experiences of the Holocaust and other wartime atrocities during this period. Diaries, letters, and photographs offered detailed insights that official records or outsiders’ reports could not access. These primary sources are crucial for understanding the full extent of the genocide and the daily realities faced by Jewish communities under Nazi rule. For survivors and their descendants, documenting their experiences was a way to preserve the memory of those who perished. It ensured that individual stories were not lost to time and that the victims’ personal histories were remembered. All these reasons factor into Mina’s decision to photograph the Nazi occupation. It is one of the novel’s examples of resistance actions that young people can take even though they lack political power and other forms of social agency. The photographs are also central to the novel’s detective plot. They reveal not just a historical truth, but also the girl in the blue coat’s present-day whereabouts.