The Journey Back

The Upstairs Room #2

by Johanna Reiss

After spending three years hiding from the Nazis, a Jewish family is reunited and begins the job of rebuilding their country and family.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Young Adult, Holocaust, Fiction, World War II, Childrens, Middle Grade

212 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1976

About the author

Dutch-born American writer presenting her Jewish childhood in the Netherlands during the Holocaust. The multi award-winning 1972 'The Upstairs Rooms', where she describes how she and her sister survived WWII in hiding, has remained a YA classic.

Her latest, 'A Hidden Life', is a memoir for adults: in it she writes of her childhood traumas and her late husband's sudden suicide.

Reviews

[Heather · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the sequel to The Upstairs Room which I reread along with Mason and Renae a few months back. I'm glad I read it. It answered all those questions that we always have about what happens AFTER the main events of a story take place. This tells about what happened after WWII, after the Germans left Holland, after the Jews came out of hiding. How did they rebuild their life? It is told from a child's point of view, so it is very simple in style and tone. Sometimes that got annoying, but I enjoyed the story. I would recommend this book (it is SUCH a quick read) for anyone who read and enjoyed The Upstairs Room.

[Karin · Rating 2 out of 5]

The story tells of Anna's reunion with her father and older sister. But the time away from everyone has made family life colder and people seemed remote. Then her father decides to remarry and Anna is left trying to please a perfectionist new stepmother- whom she calls Mother, hoping she will come to love Anna as much as she does her own practically perfect daughter. Then Anna goes to visit her gentile family but notices the difference in their social status and lifestyle. She is left trying to figure out all the pieces.


This book needed a postscript, or a few more chapters telling how Annie resolves, or doesn't resolve her issues. Her sister went back to live with the gentile family. Does she finally get accepted by her new mother? The book left her story hanging. In the postscript it says she visits her sisters and her gentile family but not her dad/ stepmother. Is that b/c they were older and passed away, or did it not work out between them all?

[Wendy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a sequel to an autobiographical story of a young girl in hiding during world war two. in this book the author tell of the adjustment to life she goes through after the war. the best part of this book was that it was an audio book read by the author. she had a smooth accented voice that read the lines like poetry. it was a interesting read and I really want to know more about her life now.

[Edwina Book Anaconda · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the sequel to The Upstairs Room and tells about what happened to the people in the first book in the year following the end of WW2.
Nowhere near as riveting as the first book but interesting to read nonetheless.

[Maura · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm still pondering the lessons that this book is conveying. I get that it's about moving on and things changing as time goes on. That part seems clear. As Annie gets older, she realizes she can't live in the past, no matter how much she loves the family that took care of her and Sini during the war. Annie doesn't like it, but it just is. HOWEVER, the change she's heading towards is NOT a good one. By the end of the book, she's desperately trying to win the love of a stepmother who is pretty vile really. She's overly materialistic, looks down on people she considers beneath her and sees nothing but fault in Annie, who will never measure up to her actual daughter...and Annie knows she doesn't measure up, but it doesn't stop her trying. And part of trying is modeling herself after this woman. And at the end of the story, it shows as she's looking around Johan and Dientje's home and finding fault (the way her stepmother does). And this is how the story ends. With Annie coming to grips with the fact that we move on and change and...becoming more and more like her witch of a stepmother. And there is nothing to indicate that she didn't. At no point in this story or later does Annie realize (or in an epilogue acknowledge) that her stepmother seemed to be an awful human being and that Annie rose above all that and found her own self-confidence and doesn't value people for their wealth. And that was desperately needed.

I'm not sure if the author meant to structure this as a story where the stepmother came across as the villain...but that was the effect. And villains need to be vanquished (or at least overcome). It rather sucked that we see Annie sort of turning her back on the people who love her like their own and have her best interests at heart while she turns to embrace a woman who only cares about herself and her own image. So no, I didn't like this story much.

[Alissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I woke up one morning wondering what had happened to Johanna Reiss (The Upstairs Room). I'd loved that book when I was a young adult and have revisited it many times since then.

I was surprised to find that she'd written...what...a sequel.

The sequel, as you might have guessed, comes after the events of the Upstairs Room, about Johanna's having to hide in a small town in WWII. The Journey Back makes clear that the survivors weren't necessarily ok when they returned. In the case of the main character here, she is suffering through anti-Semitism and a family that has been fragmented by their years of hiding. The most interesting theme is how each member of this family formed other families with the people who hid them and the conflicts that arise when the birth family tries to re-form. You also see the effects of long-lasting trauma on the main character's stepmother, whose husband was murdered in one of the camps and whose daughter has effectively abandoned her as she makes her own life.

A fascinating book--I only wish I'd known about it when it was published, in 1987.

[Peter Bartlema · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ik las de vertaling (door Bob den Uyl) van dit oorspronkelijk door Johanna Reiss in het Amerikaans-Engels geschreven boek. Die deed nogal kinderlijk aan. Maar ik begrijp dat dit boek (door de uitgever) gericht was op jongeren, hoewel de schrijfster heeft verklaard dat haar boeken bestemd waren voor alle leeftijden. Niettemin raakten deze herinneringen van een jong Joods meisje aan de periode van vlak na de Tweede Wereldoorlog me niet echt. Wellicht heeft dat ook te maken met het feit dat ik de voorganger van 'Geen slecht jaar', 'De schuilplaats' over haar onderduikperiode op het Twentse platteland, niet heb gelezen.

[Marilyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reiss provides an interesting perspective through this story of the days following the Holocaust. Most of the story covers the first year after the war ended and the tough adjustments for Jewish people living in small communities of previously occupied countries. I learned of hardships that I hadn't really thought about before as adjustments were made while healing from horrific atrocities. Although some parts of the story moved slowly or were redundant, I'm still glad I read it to broaden my understanding of the aftermath.

[Nancy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Perhaps not quite as much profanity as the first book, but still a lot. Written in incomplete sentences and for children in schools and libraries, I am appalled at the language. The stepmother is disgusting and the author so naive. I wished she had left that wicked woman. Not a series I would recommend. Disappointing.

[Soojeong Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lot changed after the war. Father remarried. Rachel converted to Christian. Sini left to live her own life. Annie alone remained the old house, missing Johan and Dientje and struggling not to annoy her stepmother. Poor Annie. It would have been better for her to stay with Oosterveld's in the first place.

[Kirsten · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was so satisfying - what is it like to try to "return" to your old life after you and everybody around you has through a terrible trauma? But it needed more of an ending, as it's left very unresolved.

[Laura-Jane Barber · Rating 4 out of 5]

So many books depict the Holocaust. This one gives a glimpse into life after and the struggles to come home and reclaim life. An excellent memoir.

[Sandi Mascio · Rating 3 out of 5]

As in the first book, The Upstairs Room, the style of writing is a bit disconcerting; however, a satisfying sequel.

[2R Hussain S]

The story about a girl. Who lived in time period of Hitler, war. The girls makes her journey back to her family.

[Hailey Hudson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn’t know there was a sequel to The Upstairs Room — this was good.

[Avonlea Gal · Rating 3 out of 5]

A little disappointing

[Gale · Rating 4 out of 5]

DUTCH AFTERMATH

This sequel to THE UPSTAIRS ROOM continues the story of young Annie, slightly lame, and her older sister, Sini, who have spent three years in hiding with a kind Gentile family. Now the war is over and they are all free to live together as a Jewish family in Holland, to pick up the shattered pieces of their lives after Nazi persecution. But nothing is that simple, for they are not quite the same people. The pre-War status quo can never be recreated after years of suffering and humiliation.

It is hard for Annie to leave the warm farm family who took them into their home and their hearts. Why does she experience so many conflicting emotions now that she is Free? Reluctance to leave her country haven; Despair over the endless quarrels between Sini and their father; Frustration at unsuccessful attempts to please a snobby, prejudiced step-mother. Why should she be forced to leave the family which has provided her with more than physical safety--who renew their offers of love and acceptance just as she is? What does the blended family have to tempt her, now that Sini wants to leave and Annie can not compete with her new sister-in-law?

Because the Nazi threat has been removed, the story obviously lacks the intensity and nervous anxiety of its more famous predecessor; the dangers are not life-threatening but soul-disturbing. Annie struggles to fit into a new role, yet her gratitude and childlike feelings are all directed to toward the Past. She was safe and comfortable with her wartime hosts even when the Nazis were suspicious, because she held a special place of love in their home. Can her father ever make it up to her? A thoughtful but somewhat disappointing read.

(May 28, 2011. I welcome dialogue with teachers.)

[Linda Lipko · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the sequel to The Upstairs Room. The author's previous work was a Newbery honor book which told her story (via the character of Annie de Leeuw) of hiding in an attic for three years while Hitler's evil forces hunted down Jews like animals. Fortunately, Reiss and her sister were hidden by a farm family, poor in finances, but rich in human kindness.

The Journey Back chronicles the difficulty of post war Holland and the adjustment not only for the country, but for those who are now struggling to pull their lives together. While originally happy to be reunited with her father and sisters, soon the family fabric is torn apart by stress. Longing to be with the family who hid her, yet hoping to embrace her biological family, like many, the impact of war forever scars.

[Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

I normally have to take a break between a book and its sequel or bokos in a series, but I read this as soon as I finished rereading The Upstairs Room, which I read in maybe fourth grade, because they are both RIVETING. In this sequel, Reiss eloquently shows through a child's eyes how the years after the war were really when the sadness of it hit. Annie has to leave her beloved caretakers and return to a now-estranged family. She fails to make friends when school reopens, and her father remarries to an unsympathetic rich woman.

[Danielle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Valuable sequel to The Upstairs Room. Annie and her sister have been hiding for the duration of WWII in the upstairs room of a remote farmhouse in Holland. Now that the war is over, Annie must return home to a father she hasn't seen in years, and leave the people who had become her family. Beautifully written account of adjusting to life and rebuilding after the war.

54/60 tbr box.

[Priscila · Rating 4 out of 5]

Easy read, sequel to "the upstairs room". The author gives an insight to what it was like to survive the war and have to start over again and how her life and the life of other Jews changed after surviving the war. Surviving the war was certainly not easy, but living after it was not that easy either.

[Mckinley · Rating 4 out of 5]

See more memoirs: The Endless Steppe: Growing Up in Siberia by Hautzig; Hostage to War by Wassiljewa; I Am Fifteen--and I Don't Want To Die by Arnothy; The Hiding Place by ten Boom; Upstairs Room by Reiss; Upon the Head of the Goat: A Childhood in Hungary 1939-1944 by Siegal; Thanks to My Mother by Rabinovici; Diary of a Young Girl by Frank; Adam and Thomas by Appelfeld

[Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Upstairs Room was one of my favorite books in middle school. This picks up where that book left off. For me it was like being transported back to reading the first book in middle school and trying to remember the book and how I felt about it back then. It is always interesting to find out what happens after the original story is over.

[Sally · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sequel to The Upstairs Room. I liked but didn't love the pair - interesting, but a bit flatly told, not the best examples of the genre.

[Lori Shipman · Rating 2 out of 5]

Although this was decent it was not as compelling as The Upstairs Room. I also disliked that Annie grew to be judgemental of the family that loved her enough to risk their lives and instead sought the approval of the self centered step mother.

[Eireanne]

Sequel to The Upstairs Room

[Dianne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Second book. About what happened after WWII in Holland. Based on a true story. Liked the common folk history of it.

[Steve Mickelson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved the Dutchness of the book!

[Cristina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book as well. Sequel to the Upstairs Room.

[Tobyleaf]

Well, that ended rather abruptly!