Girl in the Blue Coat

Content warning: The guide contains discussions of antisemitism, the Holocaust, starvation, and violence that appear in the source text.

Bas’s letter is a symbol for guilt Hanneke feels that leads her to blame herself for his death. It also represents the other forms of blame and guilt in the novel, such as the events of the war. For Hanneke, the letter represents her desire to control unfortunate events and preserve her psychological coping mechanisms.

The importance of assigning blame becomes charged as the text progresses. In the Prologue, Hanneke relays a memory where Bas playfully told her it was “her fault” that he had fallen in love with her. She believes that Bas’s death is also her fault, and this idea haunts her, making her feel unworthy of joining the resistance with Ollie. She continually refers to the letter she destroyed and feels additional guilt because she believes she robbed Bas’s family of his last words.

When Ollie reveals that Bas made his own decisions and shows her his own letter, Hanneke feels partially absolved of her guilt. However, it isn’t until she hears Mirjam forgive Amalia that she realizes the question of blame during wartime is incredibly complicated, and that she should not bear the burden of it.