96 pages • 3 hours read
Monica HesseGirl in the Blue Coat
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2016A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Chapters 25-28Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 25 Summary
On Monday of the week following Mirjam’s disappearance, Ollie puts on the Gestapo uniform and prepares to stop the transport with forged orders to inspect the baby carriage. While he does so, Hanneke will try to rescue Mirjam. Behind the plastic cow, Ollie and Hanneke discuss Bas. Hanneke confesses she feels it’s her fault that he has died. Ollie assures her that Bas would have joined the Navy with or without her encouragement. Furthermore, he has his own letter from Bas. It’s short, humorous, and concludes, “Tell Hanneke I love her. And to move on. Not too fast. Maybe after two or three months” (229). Hanneke laughs and then tries to kiss Ollie. He confesses that he’s gay and in love with Willem. This is part of his motivation for resisting.
Chapter 26 Summary
When the transport arrives, Ollie successfully stops it while Hanneke searches for Mirjam. The people in the transport repeatedly tell Hanneke to be quiet or she will put all their lives at risk. She finds a girl in a blue coat, but the girl runs away from Hanneke in the opposite direction. Nazi soldiers shoot her, and she dies. Ollie accosts Hanneke, and, still pretending to be a guard, insists that he must take her for immediate questioning: She may have been part of a plot to escape. Hanneke cries for the first time in two years, the first time since Bas’s death.
Chapter 27 Summary
After reaching safety, Ollie tells Hanneke he will retrieve Mirjam’s body. On Tuesday morning, a full week after Mirjam’s disappearance, Hanneke wakes up in Willem and Ollie’s apartment to the news that the body is at Mr. Kreuk’s. She goes to Mrs. Janssen’s and then to Mrs. de Vries’s. All morning, she wonders why the girl she believes to be Mirjam ran from her.
Chapter 28 Summary
Hanneke dresses the girl’s body. She finds a note in her pocket written to her friend, saying that she wishes she had never met “T.” Ollie, Willem, and Mrs. Janssen come to the funeral, and the body is buried.
Chapters 25-28 Analysis
These chapters bring Hanneke’s pursuit of Mirjam to a seemingly dramatic conclusion and also mark the resolution of her guilt about Bas’s death. Facing the great risk of trying to rescue Mirjam and retrieve the camera, Ollie and Hanneke are finally able to speak openly about their feelings for Bas. Ollie reveals that Hanneke’s fears and guilt are misplaced. Bas may have been uncertain about his choice to join the Navy from moment to moment, but his fierce idealism led him to overcome that fear and be brave. His death is thus not on Hanneke’s hands, and as his family members all received notes, her fears that she deprived them of Bas’s final words are also unfounded. Hanneke is forced to fully confront her grief when the girl she believes to be Mirjam is killed, highlighting the climax of her Personal Transformation During Wartime. In a moment of catharsis, she cries for the first time in two years, believing that her search for Mirjam is over and has failed. As she dresses the body and says goodbye, she has the opportunity to mourn not only Mirjam but also Bas, whose body was never returned to his family.
In reality, the girl is not Mirjam, as will be revealed in the final chapters. This is an example of misdirection in the detective plot and an example of the theme that things and people in the novel are not always what they seem. Ollie’s confession that he is gay in Chapter 25 is also an important moment in the theme of The Necessity and Danger of Keeping Secrets. It shows how during the occupation, personal and political choices are inseparable. It also illuminates another way in which Ollie is at risk, as Nazis also deported gay men to concentration camps. His feelings for Willem galvanize his commitment to the resistance, and learning this gives Hanneke the same determination even though she believes their mission has failed.
Mina’s camera continues to be a multilayered symbol that resonates with the novel’s real historical context. The experiences documented by Jewish people during the Holocaust highlighted the consequences of hatred, bigotry, and indifference. They were stark reminders of the importance of standing against oppression and protecting human rights. For many survivors, documenting their experiences was a form of catharsis. It allowed them to process their trauma and share their stories with the world. This act of bearing witness was often a crucial step in their psychological healing and a means of reclaiming their voice and identity after immense suffering. The novel emphasizes that these lessons are timeless and continue to resonate in the fight against modern-day antisemitism and other forms of discrimination.
