Number the Stars Read Online Free PDF Page A

“That’s in Copenhagen!
Gone With the Wind
is in America!”
    â€œTivoli, Tivoli, Tivoli,” little Kirsti sang, twirling her doll in a circle.
    â€œIt doesn’t matter, because it’s only a game anyway,” Ellen pointed out. “Tivoli can be over there, by that chair. ‘Come, Scarlett,’” she said, using her doll voice, “‘we shall go to Tivoli to dance and watch the fireworks, and maybe there will be some handsome men there! Bring your silly daughter Bonnie, and she can ride on the carousel.’”
    Annemarie grinned and walked her Scarlett toward the chair that Ellen had designated as Tivoli. She loved Tivoli Gardens, in the heart of Copenhagen; her parents had taken her there, often, when she was a little girl. She remembered the music and the brightly colored lights, the carousel and ice cream and especially the magnificent fireworks in the evenings: the huge colored splashes and bursts of lights in the evening sky.
    â€œI remember the fireworks best of all,” she commented to Ellen.
    â€œMe too,” Kirsti said. “I remember the fireworks.”
    â€œSilly,” Annemarie scoffed. “You never saw the fireworks.” Tivoli Gardens was closed now. The German occupation forces had burned part of it, perhaps as a way of punishing the fun-loving Danes for their lighthearted pleasures.
    Kirsti drew herself up, her small shoulders stiff. “I did too,” she said belligerently. “It was my birthday. I woke up in the night and I could hear the booms. And there were lights in the sky. Mama said it was fireworks for my birthday!”
    Then Annemarie remembered. Kirsti’s birthday was late in August. And that night, only a month before, she, too, had been awakened and frightened by the sound of explosions. Kirsti was right—the sky in the southeast had been ablaze, and Mama had comforted her by calling it a birthday celebration. “Imagine, such fireworks for a little girl five years old!” Mama had said, sitting on their bed, holding the dark curtain aside to look through the window at the lighted sky.
    The next evening’s newspaper had told the sad truth. The Danes had destroyed their own naval fleet, blowing up the vessels one by one, as the Germans approached to take over the ships for their own use.
    â€œHow sad the king must be,” Annemarie had heard Mama say to Papa when they read the news.
    â€œHow proud,” Papa had replied.
    It had made Annemarie feel sad and proud, too, to picture the tall, aging king, perhaps with tears in his blue eyes, as he looked at the remains of his small navy, which now lay submerged and broken in the harbor.
    â€œI don’t want to play anymore, Ellen,” she said suddenly, and put her paper doll on the table.
    â€œI have to go home, anyway,” Ellen said. “I have to help Mama with the housecleaning. Thursday is our New Year. Did you know that?”
    â€œWhy is it yours?” asked Kirsti. “Isn’t it our New Year, too?”
    â€œNo. It’s the Jewish New Year. That’s just for us. But if you want, Kirsti, you can come that night and watch Mama light the candles.”
    Annemarie and Kirsti had often been invited to watch Mrs. Rosen light the Sabbath candles on Friday evenings. She covered her head with a cloth and said a special prayer in Hebrew as she did so. Annemarie always stood very quietly, awed, to watch; even Kirsti, usually such a chatterbox, was always still at that time. They didn’t understand the words or the meaning, but they could feel what a special time it was for the Rosens.
    â€œYes,” Kirsti agreed happily. “I’ll come and watch your mama light the candles, and i’ll wear my new black shoes.”
    Â 
    But this time was to be different. Leaving for school on Thursday with her sister, Annemarie saw the Rosens walking to the synagogue early in the morning, dressed in their best clothes. She