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Summary Of Number The Stars By Lois Lowry

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Number the Stars, a novel, shows the strongness and respect Denmark contained when under Nazi occupation in WWII. Though the story is historical fiction, Lois Lowry used thought-provoking events to show the Danes resistance, honor, and hope for a better future. From the kingdom of Denmark’s beginnings, a powerful sense of patriotic unity is present that continues throughout its history and is still there today.

The Kingdom of Denmark was founded by viking king, Gorm the Old in the tenth century. This means that the current queen, Queen Margrethe II, is a descendant from vikings! Gorm’s son Harald Bluetooth helped unify Denmark geographically, and emotionally. Bluetooth and his descendants would assist England and Norway to do the …show more content…

To show these tensions tensions Lowry opened her novel, Number the Stars, with a plot that revolved around, food shortages, a main character’s death due to her work in the resistance, The Free Danes a Danish resistance newspaper, and an incident involving the main character's interaction with suspicious Nazi soldiers. From the start, numerous Danes worked together to get Jewish people out of the country before occupation. For example, to throw Nazi dogs off the Jews paths Danes would use a Swedish mix of rabbits blood and cocaine to temporarily disable the dog’s sense of smell. Then they would give Jews, Danish names to smuggle them to safety in Sweden. Anniemarie, the main character, in Number the Stars delivered this mixture to help save her best friend’s life. As a result, out of eight thousand Jews, only 450 of them were sent to camps. Historians have called this act of the Danes: “the largest episode of mass altruism in history.” In 1945, Denmark was free of Nazi occupation. New revisions to the Danish Constitution included getting rid of neutrality, and allowing a female monarch (Docalavich,

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