How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
I was on my way back when I heard the planes and saw the parachutes. "Oh look!" I called out, though there was nobody to hear me. "Look! How beautiful!" And then I raced for home, saying to myself over and over again, "The Tommies have come! The Tommies have come! Liberation! Liberation!" (2.7)
Our first description of war is actually of it being over—or, what Geertrui thinks will be the end of the war anyway. Too bad for her, things are just heating up where she lives. The novel constantly hints at the end of the war, making the death that war brings that much more heartbreaking when we experience it.
Quote #2
Somehow, I suppose, till that moment, the war, the fighting, had been outside, separate from us. Now suddenly it was happening right inside our home. (2.28)
This is a huge moment for Geertrui, because it's arguably when she grows up. She's no longer an innocent kid, ignorant of the war going on around her—now she's seeing bloody soldiers and death right in her own living room, and growing up as a result.