topics: |  children | world-war2

Excerpts

It is much easier to be brave if you do not know everything. ...
There is no Great-Aunt Birte, and never has been.
Your mama lied to you and so did I. We did so to help you to be brave,
because we love you.
  - p.77

[Christian X King of Denmark during the Nazi years, used
to ride his horse alone each morning through the streets of
Copenhagen. (based on a documented story) p.13]

   "Who is that man who rides past here every morning on his horse?"
a German soldier asked.
   "He is our king," the [teenage] boy told the soldier. "He is the
King of Denmark."
   "Where is his bodyguard?" the soldier asked.
   "All of Denmark is his bodyguard."

---
Kim Malthe-Bruun, resistance leader in Denmark, executed by the
Nazis at age 21, in his last letter to his mother the night before
he was put to death (quoted on p.137):

	... and I want you all to remember -- that you must not dream
	yourselves back to the times before the war, but the dream for you
	all, young and old, must be to create an ideal of human decency, and
	not a narrow-minded and prejudiced one. That is the great gift our
	country hungers for, something every little peasant boy can look
	forward to, and with pleasure feel he is a part of -- something he
	can work and fight for.

blurb:
Ten-year-old Annemarie Johansen and her best friend Ellen Rosen often think
of life before the war. It's now 1943 and their life in Copenhagen is filled
with school, food shortages, and the Nazi soldiers marching through
town. When the Jews of Denmark are " relocated, " Ellen moves in with the
Johansens and pretends to be one of the family. Soon Annemarie is asked to go
on a dangerous mission to save Ellen's life.