Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of death and religious discrimination.

Miri, a 12-year-old Jewish girl, is the protagonist of The Night War; the story is told from her perspective and illustrates The Cumulative Horrors of Antisemitic Prejudice and Genocide. Miri’s family escaped increasing persecution in Berlin in 1938 when their home was destroyed during Kristallnacht, a night when Jewish homes and businesses were destroyed. Miri goes to school in Paris; she speaks fluent French without an accent, but she is made to wear a yellow Star of David to signify her Jewish identity, as are her Jewish family and friends. Miri believes herself to be cowardly. She remembers the arrest of Monsieur Rosenbaum two years earlier and feels that she didn’t do enough to intervene. She also feels scared going into the Pletzl to pick up rations for her family.

Miri is a dynamic character who evolves throughout the novel. She must act with extraordinary courage to save Nora and herself when Madame Rosenbaum urges them to escape from the roundup. Miri (who adopts the pseudonym Marie) must disguise her identity at the convent and takes on the role of a passeur—a people smuggler—to save Jewish people and a downed airman who need to escape.