Reprieve

As Annemarie, her sister and mother, and her friend Ellen stay with her Uncle Henrik, there is a scene in which there is a definite reprieve from the stressors and the worries that the Nazi invasion has made them so accustomed to. They even joke about how the Nazis "relocate" their butter to the stomachs of their soldiers. That morning is a discontinuity of their stressful lives that Lowry put in in order to give the reader a glimpse of their lives before the Germans began intruding upon their lives.