The Upstairs Room

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes a discussion of antisemitism.

While Annie is on the bus, Dutch soldiers stop the vehicle for a routine inspection. When a soldier asks if the suitcase is hers, Annie claims it’s full of girls’ clothes she’s delivering to her aunt. The soldier nods and walks on. The bus continues to Enschede, where Annie disembarks, meets Dini Hannink, and bikes to Usselo. Safe inside the Hannink house, Sini and Annie share a room upstairs. After their first night, the girls are restless and wake early. As she listens to the family get ready for her day, Annie thinks of how she had places to go before the “tree said all those things” (46). She remembers going to a hotel on the ocean. When Annie asks Sini about their mother, her sister confesses that their mother never understood the threat they faced but that their father was scared.

Mr. Hannink builds an underground hiding place in case the house is searched. Annie longs to go there. Sini, meanwhile, hates being inside and yearns to go out. When Dini leaves for school, Annie watches from the window, fighting off envy. Soon, they learn that their mother has died in the hospital.