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Hanneke Bakker
Amalia is the best friend of Mirjam, the missing Jewish girl Hanneke is trying to find. After Mrs. Janssen employs Hanneke to find Mirjam, Hanneke discovers Mirjam’s friendship with Amalia and the importance that friendship played in both girls’ lives. Hanneke eventually realizes that the girl Mrs. Janssen hid from the Nazis was in fact Amalia, who had taken Mirjam’s place to protect her from the Nazis. Amalia serves as a mirror for Hanneke to recognize and grapple with her own identity and relationships with others. Both Amalia and Hanneke find their friendships disrupted by romance; Hanneke’s best friend Elsbeth married a German soldier, while Amalia resented Mirjam’s closeness with Christoffel. In fact, Hanneke wishes to see Amalia and Mirjam reunited the way she and Elsbeth will never be. Hanneke and Amalia also both carry guilt for endangering a loved one, as Hanneke persuaded her boyfriend Bas to join the military and Amalia betrayed Mirjam’s family to the Germans. Amalia ultimately gives her life to atone for betraying Mirjam, choosing to die in Mirjam’s place at the hands of the Nazis.
Amalia Quotes in Girl in the Blue Coat
The Girl in the Blue Coat quotes below are all either spoken by Amalia or refer to Amalia. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 9 Quotes
Elsbeth is the grief I would allow myself to feel, if my emotions weren’t so covered in darkness.
Because Elsbeth isn’t dead. Elsbeth is living twenty minutes away, with a German soldier. She says she loves him. She probably does. I met him once. Rolf. He was handsome and tall; he had a friendly smile. He even said the right things, like how he knew all the boys wanted Elsbeth and he felt lucky to have her, how he worked for someone high up in the Gestapo and if I ever needed anything, I should let him know because a friend of Elsbeth’s was a friend of his. I shook his hand and wanted to throw up.
So right now, when I’m looking at these schoolgirl notes, […] I’m not distracted by Bas. I can see Elsbeth again.
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Chapter 33 Quotes
In the end, this is what I told Mrs. Janssen, when she came home that day at her house: I told her that the girl she sent me to look for was dead, but the girl she wanted me to find might not be. I told her that I could never bring back the girl who she had grown to love over several weeks of hiding, but that I might be able to find the girl whose family was all gone, just like Mrs. Janssen’s son and husband were gone. I showed her the picture, and I told her that I knew it didn’t make sense. I told her I would try to find a way for it to make sense, but it maybe never could. I told her I was sorry.
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Her eyes fill with tears. “Have you ever had a best friend?”
I nod. My throat is tight. “Once. Not anymore.”
“Then you know. You know what it’s like to love someone like you love yourself and then lose them.’
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I don’t why Mirjam should care, if I think well of Amalia or not. She doesn’t even know me.
Except that, it occurs to me, I would care if it were me or my friends. All of us—Bas, Elsbeth, Ollie, me—I would care that someone understood we were flawed and scarred and doing the best we could in this war. We were wrapped up in things that were so much bigger than ourselves. We didn’t know. We didn’t mean it. It wasn’t our fault.
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Amalia Character Timeline in Girl in the Blue Coat
The timeline below shows where the character Amalia appears in Girl in the Blue Coat. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 10
...letter from “Margaret” to “Elizabeth” was actually a letter from Mirjam to her best friend Amalia, who isn’t Jewish and has moved out of Amsterdam. Mina also identifies the boy Mirjam...
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Chapter 14
...unusual given that the trains have been taken over by German officers. Hanneke remembers that Amalia moved to Den Haag and gives Christoffel a letter for his father to pass on...
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Chapter 16
...issue as the one Hanneke found at home, and it includes a message from “Elizabeth” (Amalia) to “Margaret” (Mirjam), explaining through these aliases where to find Amalia. Hanneke suspects Mirjam read...
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Chapter 17
...her expectation of Mirjam, assuming that Mirjam must have been looking for Tobias rather than Amalia. She wonders if the note in the paper was part of a plan Amalia and...
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Chapter 24
...parents have gone to bed without waiting up for her. She finds a response from Amalia, delivered by Christoffel, regretfully informing Hanneke that she doesn’t know where Mirjam is. She imagines...
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Chapter 28
...time. Hanneke looks through the pockets of the blue coat and finds a note to Amalia, apologizing for letting Tobias come between them. Hanneke is amazed at how little this schoolgirl...
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Chapter 31
...behind where Mrs. Janssen’s husband was hiding them. The photographs include one of Mirjam and Amalia. Hanneke recognizes Amalia as the dead girl from the theater.
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Chapter 32
Hanneke is shaken at the realization that Amalia is the dead girl. Christoffel arrives. Mrs. Janssen sent him to find Hanneke, and he’s...
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Christoffel confesses he saw Amalia in Mrs. Janssen’s home twice. The second time was after Amalia saw the message from...
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Christoffel continues his story. When Amalia left Mrs. Janssen’s house, she went to stay with Christoffel. However, she told him something...
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Chapter 33
...space on a train and arrives in Kijkduin, where she goes to the house where Amalia’s aunt rents out rooms. Mirjam is inside, and Hanneke tells her what happened to Amalia....
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Mirjam reveals the secret Amalia told Christoffel: Amalia is the one who turned Mirjam’s family in to the Nazis, out...
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