Historical Ideas In The Upstairs Room By Johanna Reiss

The holocaust was a horrific time period during the World War II. This was a time of fear for the minorities of the German race. The Germans would capture, torture and even murder the people. The holocaust did not only target German Jews, it targeted Jews from many different countries that the Germans controlled. The holocaust also did not only target Jews but it targeted other people as well. The book The Upstairs Room mentions a few big picture ideas, and involves other historical events throughout the book.
The Book The Upstairs Room by Johanna Reiss is about a little girl, named Annie de Leeuw. She is a Holland Jew during the time period of World War II. The de Leeuw family thought they were safe because they lived in Holland and Hitler …show more content…
At the time of the Holocaust, World War II was also going on. World War II had many different events included and the book talks about some of them. It mentions the Germans invading other countries that started World War II. At first it says they invaded Austria then Poland and the Netherlands. The book also mentions bombings which with some research it was during the invasion the Netherlands were bombed by the Luftwaffe It discusses the Germans failing in Russia and being pushed back. This is known as the Battle of Stalingrad, where the Germans invade Soviet Union. The Germans were not ready for the soviets to fight back. The USSR pushed the Germans back and was the first victory against the Germans and a turning point in the war. Another event that was mentioned and very important to the book was D-Day. It was when the allied powers attacked in France to push the Germans back. It was a major victory and lead to the end of the war in …show more content…
The Germans were harsh and cruel to Jews. The holocaust is one of the worst events in history killing up to 6 million people; many people were affected greatly like the character Annie who has a limp from being in hiding for so long. There are many other people like that with lasting effect physical and psychological because of how horrific the holocaust was. The shocking part was that the author of the book was indifferent about the event. When reading the book did not convey resentment from the holocaust. She just informed us about the difficult times but was not angry about what happened to her. She sometimes seemed grateful it happened because then she got to meet the Oostervalds who she loves. Another surprising characteristic of the book is the innocence of the girl that is perceived. The girl is eight at the beginning of the book and the pure innocence of her at the time is crazy. In the book she gets so upset that everyone else gets to go to school. The author portrayed innocence in this book really well. It is hard to do that which is why it is so surprising. Another astonishing thing is that many people do not realize that other helped during the holocaust. When people think about the holocaust they think of everyone being uncaring and ruthless but there were actually many people who helped. One example of this is from the book, most people do not realize that other people