The people who are responsible for my son's death aren't going to get away with it. I'm not going to let them...' Otto's not going to decide everything by himself,' she thinks. 'I want to do what I want some of the time, even if it doesn't suit him.
-- Anna Quangel (chapter 3)

Importance: Anna is alone in the apartment just after she has learned of her son's death on the war front. She is devastated and angry at the regime that has dragged her only child into war and taken him forever. She has also just overheard a conversation out in the hallway between Baldur Persicke and Emil Borkhausen as they discuss robbing and harming Frau Rosenthal upstairs. Her anger now turns to determination against the authorities in her life. She has no definite plans about what she might do, but she knows that she must fight against the people who are...