Girl in the Blue Coat

Ollie is the tall, red-haired brother of Hanneke’s first boyfriend, Bas. He is a university student and an active member of the resistance. Where his brother was gregarious and impulsive, Ollie is careful and steady. He speaks perfect German and is able to think on his feet to avoid detection. Feeling a sense of connection to Hanneke, Ollie reaches out to enlist her in the resistance. Ollie is gay and in love with his roommate, Willem. He fights not only out of disgust with the Nazi treatment of Jewish people but also out of his personal risk of persecution for his sexual identity. He tells Hanneke that his experience hiding his true self in his regular life prepared him for hiding his activities related to the resistance. 

Mrs. Janssen is a white-haired, shortsighted widow. Nazis killed her husband, the owner of a furniture shop, for harboring the Roodveldt family. Two of her sons live abroad, and the other was killed fighting the Nazi invasion. Having lost her family, she feels deeply tied to the girl she believes to be Mirjam Roodveldt, as they are both alone in the world. She is persistent in convincing Hanneke to find this girl.

Mirjam is a beautiful 15-year-old Jewish girl with curly black hair, pale skin, and a scar on her knees from tripping on a rusty piece of fence. When she ruins one blue coat tripping, her parents buy her another. Her first love is Christoffel (Tof). She hides in the bathroom when Nazis discover Mr. Janssen and her family in the back room of the furniture shop and proceed to kill them all. She escapes, and exchanges papers with her best friend, Amalia. Then, she makes her way to Den Haag to stay with Amalia’s aunt. She is surprised and devastated to hear that Amalia has died, even though she knows her friend is responsible for informing on her family’s whereabouts.

Amalia is a Mirjam’s best friend. Like Mirjam, she has curly black hair. She is taller and also has a birthmark on her chin. She is jealous of her best friend’s relationship with Christoffel and tells her Nazi-sympathizing uncle of their whereabouts. When she realizes her mistake, she runs to meet her friend, only to find her in the street, fleeing the scene of her family’s murder. She exchanges papers with Mirjam, but from there, cannot find a way back to her family, so she stays with Mrs. Janssen and then Christoffel until he casts her out and she is accosted for deportation.

Mina is a 15-year-old Jewish girl and Judith’s cousin. She is short, with brilliant eyes, and is positive, chatty, and dynamic, even in the midst of war. She works at the Schouwburg Theater nursery, where she both cares for Jewish children and hands off babies to adoptive families for their protection during the war. In addition, she is a passionate photographer who asks for film on every birthday. As the war begins, she starts secretly documenting the German occupation to preserve evidence for posterity. She is incredibly brave for her young age.

While Bas is dead from the outset of the novel, he looms large in Hanneke’s memory. Bas was a handsome, redheaded boy; he was gregarious, unserious, and quick to make others laugh. He was a youthful idealist, committed to fighting the Nazis despite his own genuine fears. His bravery overrides his concerns, and he joins the Navy on his seventeenth birthday.

Christoffel “Tof” is Mrs. Janssen’s errand boy as well as Amalia and Mirjam’s classmate. He is 15, blonde, and handsome. Mirjam is his first love. He tries to help Amalia, his friend and classmate, when he finds her in hiding, but when he realizes she has caused the death of the Roodveldt family, he casts her out. He is consequently consumed with guilt.