Growing up, most of us had that one book that stuck in our heads. For many, it was The Upstairs Room. It wasn't just another school assignment about World War II. It felt different. It felt real because, well, it was. Johanna Reiss didn’t just write a historical novel; she laid out her childhood like a map of survival.
She was Annie de Leeuw back then. Just a kid.
The story isn't about grand battles or sweeping political movements. It’s about a room. Specifically, an upstairs room in a farmhouse in the Dutch village of Usselo. For nearly three years, Annie and her sister Sini lived there, hiding from the Nazis. It’s a claustrophobic, tense, and strangely human account of what happens when your entire world shrinks to four walls. Honestly, if you haven't read it since middle school, you're missing the layers that only an adult can really grasp.
Why The Upstairs Room is Not Just Another Diary of Anne Frank
People love to compare this book to Anne Frank’s diary. It’s an easy shorthand. Both stories involve Jewish girls in the Netherlands hiding from the Holocaust. But the vibe is totally different. While Anne Frank’s diary is a philosophical coming-of-age journey trapped in a house, The Upstairs Room is a gritty, sensory experience of rural isolation.
The de Leeuw family was split up. That's the first gut punch.
Johanna’s father and older sister Rachel went elsewhere, while Annie and Sini ended up with the Oostervelds. The Oostervelds weren't scholars or upper-class city folk. They were farmers. Johan, Dientje, and Opoe (the grandmother) were plain-spoken, brave, and sometimes incredibly grumpy. This wasn't a cinematic rescue mission. It was a messy, terrifying daily chore for everyone involved.
The book captures the smallness of their lives. You feel the dust. You feel the boredom that borders on madness. Annie describes the physical sensation of her legs becoming weak because she couldn't walk. Think about that. A child forgetting how to use her own limbs because the floor is too loud.
👉 See also: Sleeping With Your Neighbor: Why It Is More Complicated Than You Think
The Oosterveld Family: Heroes Who Didn't Wear Capes
We need to talk about Johan Oosterveld. He’s arguably the heart of the book. He wasn't some saintly figure from a Hollywood movie. He was a guy who took an enormous risk because it was the right thing to do, even when he was scared out of his mind. He’d joke with the girls, tease them, and keep their spirits up with a kind of rough-edged humor that feels so much more authentic than "inspirational" dialogue.
He once told the girls that if the Germans came, he’d hide them in the "closet" he built behind a false wall. It was tiny. It was suffocating. But he made it a game whenever he could.
Dientje was different. She was nervous. Constant anxiety. And honestly? That's probably the most realistic part of the whole narrative. Most people wouldn't be stoic heroes. They’d be like Dientje—terrified that a neighbor would see an extra loaf of bread or hear a floorboard creak. The tension between the sisters and the farmers adds a layer of psychological depth that most "young adult" literature ignores. It wasn't always "we're all in this together." Sometimes it was "I'm sick of looking at your face in this tiny room."
The Reality of Usselo and the Dutch Resistance
To understand why The Upstairs Room matters, you have to look at the geography. Usselo is small. Even today, it’s a quiet spot near Enschede. During the occupation, the Dutch resistance was a fragmented, dangerous web. The book mentions the "underground" without making it sound like a spy thriller. It was just people in dark coats moving people from house to house.
The girls weren't always in the upstairs room.
When the situation got too "hot"—meaning the Nazis were doing frequent house-to-house searches—they had to move. They spent time in a hole in the ground in the woods. Imagine that for a second. Leaving a cramped room for a literal hole in the dirt because it's "safer." Reiss doesn't over-dramatize it. She just says it happened. That matter-of-fact tone is why the book won the Newbery Honor and the Jewish Book Council Award. It doesn't need to beg for your sympathy.
✨ Don't miss: At Home French Manicure: Why Yours Looks Cheap and How to Fix It
Misconceptions About the Ending
People often think the book ends with a big, joyful parade. It doesn't. Not really. When the Canadians finally liberated the area in 1945, the transition wasn't an immediate "happily ever after."
Annie and Sini had to learn how to be in the world again.
They had been "the girls upstairs" for so long that being "Annie and Sini" felt foreign. Their mother had died in a hospital during the war—not from the Holocaust directly, but from illness, separated from her children. Their father returned, but he was a changed man. The family unit was shattered, even if most of them survived physically. That’s the nuance Reiss brings to the table. Survival is just the beginning of a different kind of struggle.
The Legacy of Johanna Reiss
Johanna Reiss moved to America later in life. She became a teacher. She started writing the book because her own daughters asked about her childhood. It’s wild to think that one of the most significant pieces of Holocaust literature for children started as a way to explain a mother’s trauma to her kids.
She eventually wrote a sequel called The Journey Back. It’s much darker. It deals with the aftermath, the "now what?" of surviving a genocide. If you only read the first book, you're getting the survival story, but the second book gives you the human story.
Why We Still Read It
In 2026, we live in a world of constant noise. The Upstairs Room is the opposite of noise. It is a study in silence.
🔗 Read more: Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen Menu: Why You’re Probably Ordering Wrong
It teaches kids (and reminds adults) that history isn't just dates on a timeline. It’s the smell of a cramped attic. It’s the sound of a German soldier’s boots on the stairs while you hold your breath until your lungs burn. It’s the weird, dark humor you develop with your sister when you think you might die.
The book remains a staple in classrooms because it’s accessible. The language is simple. Reiss wrote it from the perspective of her younger self, so it doesn't feel like a lecture. It feels like a secret being whispered to you.
How to Engage with The Upstairs Room Today
If you're looking to revisit this story or introduce it to someone else, don't just treat it like a history lesson. It’s a character study.
- Look at the maps: Pull up Enschede and Usselo on a satellite map. Seeing the flat, open farmland makes you realize how exposed the Oosterveld farm actually was. There was nowhere to run.
- Read the Afterwords: Newer editions of the book often include updates on what happened to the Oostervelds. Johan and Dientje were eventually honored by Yad Vashem as "Righteous Among the Nations." Knowing they received that recognition adds a beautiful closing note to the tension of the book.
- Compare the Sisters: Pay attention to Sini. As the older sister, she had it harder in many ways. She was a young woman losing her best years to a room, while Annie was still a child. Their friction is one of the most honest depictions of sibling relationships under pressure.
- Search for Interviews: Johanna Reiss has given several interviews later in life. Hearing her actual voice—sharp, witty, and incredibly resilient—changes how you read Annie’s internal monologue.
The best way to honor a story like this is to recognize the humanity in it. The Oostervelds weren't perfect, and the de Leeuw sisters weren't always "brave." They were just people trying to get to tomorrow. In a world that often feels like it's losing its mind, that's a pretty powerful thing to remember.
Start by finding an older copy if you can. There’s something about the yellowed pages of a 1970s paperback that makes the story of a dusty upstairs room feel even more immediate. Read it in one sitting. It's short, but it'll stay with you for a long time. Once you finish, look into the stories of other "hidden children" in the Netherlands; the Dutch resistance had a unique way of hiding people in plain sight that was different from the French or Polish experiences. Understanding that broader context makes Annie’s room feel like the center of a much larger, incredibly dangerous universe.