Number The Stars - Plot Summary

Plot Summary

The story opens as two Nazi soldiers stop Annemarie Johansen and her friend Ellen Rosen and ask them both questions on the streets of Copenhagen. That night, Annemarie reminisces about her older sister Lise, who was hit by a car and killed (it is later revealed that the Nazis intentionally hit her). She also recalls her father seeing a boy tell a Nazi soldier about how all of Denmark is King Christian X's bodyguard.

Soon after, Peter Nielsen (who was Annemarie's sister Lise's fiance), a man working in the Danish Resistance, visits Annemarie and her family and tells them that the Germans have started closing Jewish stores. The next day, Ellen and her parents go to the synagogue for a Jewish holiday, but come to find out that the Nazis have demanded lists of the Danish Jews. They will use these lists to arrest and relocate the entire Jewish population. Peter takes Mr. and Mrs. Rosen with him into hiding, and Ellen Rosen (disguised as Lise) comes to live with the Johansens.

In the middle of the night, Nazi soldiers arrive at the Johansens' apartment and demand that they reveal where the Rosen family is. Annemarie rips off the Star of David necklace which belongs to Ellen to conceal her identity of being Jewish. The Nazi soldiers become suspicious because Annemarie and Kirsti have blond hair, but Ellen has dark brown hair. Mr. Johansen retrieves baby photos of his three daughters, with their names listed, which clearly show that Lise had hair similar to Ellen's when she was a baby. The soldiers leave.

After the Nazis leave, Mr. Johansen calls his brother-in-law, Henrik, and makes encoded arrangements to bring Ellen to him. Later, Annemarie, Ellen, Mrs. Johansen, and Kirsti leave by train for Uncle Henrik's home in Gilleleje. One peaceful day goes by at Henrik's, then Mrs. Johansen tells the girls that their Great-aunt Birte has died and they will be having a funeral. However, Annemarie knows that Great-aunt Birte does not exist, and confronts Uncle Henrik. He explains to her that she is right, and says that it is easier to be brave when you don't know the full truth.

Many strangers arrive at Uncle Henrik's house for the funeral, among them a rabbi and several Jewish families. A group of Nazi soldiers arrive and interrupt the funeral, and Ellen's parents and Peter Nielsen arrive shortly after. A soldier asks her mother to open the casket. Her mother told the soldier that she would love to do so, since country doctors were not reliable, and it was only the country doctor who told them that opening the casket would spread germs because Great-aunt Birte had died from typhus. The soldier slaps her face and leaves in frustration. Peter reads the beginning of Psalm 147 to the group from the Bible, recounting the Lord God numbering the stars. Annemarie thinks that it is impossible to number the stars in the sky, and that the world is cold and very cruel like the sky or the ocean, which Mrs. Rosen is scared of.

Peter opens the casket and distributes warm clothing and blankets to the Jewish families who then depart, splitting up to attract less attention. Annemarie says goodbye to Ellen. In the morning her mother realizes that a package important to the Resistance was accidentally dropped by Mr. Rosen when he tripped on a flight of stairs. Mrs. Johansen, knowing the importance of the package, gives Annemarie a basket filled with food and hides the package inside. Annemarie runs off, onto a wooded path towards her uncle's boat.

When she nears the harbor, she is stopped by German soldiers on patrol, and lies that she is merely delivering lunch to her uncle. The soldiers toss some of the food onto the ground and eventually reach the package, which they tear open, finding only a handkerchief. The German soldiers walk away. Annemarie continues onward to Uncle Henrik and gives him the package. He boards his fishing boat and leaves for Sweden.

Uncle Henrik returns to Denmark later that evening and explains that the Rosens and many other Jewish people were hiding in his boat and that the handkerchief contained the scent of rabbit blood and cocaine, to attract the dogs so when they sniffed it, the cocaine would temporarily numb the German dogs' sense of smell.

Two years later, the war ends, and all of Denmark celebrates. Several revelations are made: Peter was captured and executed by the Germans. The Jews who were forced to leave Denmark return and find that their friends and neighbors have kept up their apartments in anticipation of their return. Annemarie finds out how Lise died. When the the Rosens come back, Annemarie asks her father to repair Ellen's Star of David necklace (which had been broken off the night the Nazis broke into the apartment in order to conceal her identity), wanting to wear it herself in honor of her best friend.