Part 3
Deep in the night, fists pound on the Johansens’ door: soldiers, hunting the vanished Rosens. In the girls’ bedroom Ellen freezes — she is still wearing her golden Star of David necklace, the one thing that would betray her instantly. Annemarie rips it from her friend’s neck a heartbeat before the door opens and holds it clenched in her fist through the whole inspection — so hard that afterward the star’s shape is pressed into her palm. The officer studies the dark-haired ‘Lise’ among her blonde sisters and does not believe; Papa, thinking fast, tears three baby photographs from the family album — each labeled with a daughter’s name — and the infant Lise’s dark curls answer the question. The soldiers leave. By morning the adults have a plan: Mama will take the three girls north to Uncle Henrik’s house by the sea, announced to the world through a coded telephone call about a carton of cigarettes. On the train, soldiers stalk the aisles and Kirsti’s innocent chatter skates near the edge of disaster — but by afternoon the girls are running toward salt air, a gray kitten, and a coastline where, on clear days, you can see Sweden across the water.
| Section | What you will practice |
|---|---|
| Vocabulary | Night-search words: pound, imprint, album, code, chatter… |
| Literary Elements | The clenched star, the fast lie, and coded language |
| Cross-Curricular | The Star of David — story of a symbol |
| Ch. | What happens |
|---|---|
| 5–6 | The Night Search, and the Train North — soldiers raid the apartment hunting the Rosens; Annemarie tears off Ellen’s star necklace and hides it in her fist; Papa’s labeled baby photos save the lie; a coded phone call about cigarettes sends Mama and the girls north by train to Henrik’s seaside house, within sight of Sweden. |
ⓘ The vocabulary words in this list are selected to help you understand and complete this workbook. Some may not appear verbatim in the original novel.
- Papa’s labeled baby photos answer the officer’s doubt.
- Mama makes the coded call about cigarettes.
- Annemarie hides the necklace in her clenched fist.
- Fists pound on the door in the middle of the night.
- The train carries the girls north to Henrik’s coast.
Think back over these chapters. A dark bedroom; boots in the hallway; a golden chain snapping as a door swings open — and then an officer’s flashlight moving across three girls’ faces, one of them wearing a dead sister’s name. A father’s hands, steady, tearing three photographs from an album. In the morning: a telephone call about cigarettes that no shop has sold in years; a train aisle patrolled by gray uniforms; and at the end of the line, wind off the water, a gray kitten — and another country, shining across the strait.
The six-pointed star — two overlapping triangles — is one of the world’s oldest geometric designs, found in art from many ancient cultures. Its special bond with Judaism grew over centuries. Known in Hebrew as the Magen David, or Shield of David, the symbol appeared on a Prague synagogue flag in the 1300s. It then spread across Jewish communities of Europe, and by the 1800s had become the faith’s most recognized emblem — a design that stands for a group — leaving its imprint on synagogues, books, and gravestones. In 1948 the new state of Israel placed the blue star at the center of its flag, where it flies today.
The star’s darkest chapter came under Nazi rule. Across much of occupied Europe, Nazi authorities forced Jews to wear a yellow cloth badge — not as an honor, but as a marker that made the wearer suspicious in official eyes, singled out for isolation and arrest. Denmark stands out because the badge decree was never imposed there. Danes nevertheless spread the defiant (though historians class it as folklore, a story told rather than documented) tale that King Christian X had vowed to wear the star himself if his Jewish citizens ever had to. The novel’s necklace scene draws its power from this whole history: in a Europe where the star was being used to mark people for capture, one Danish girl hides it in her fist — guarding, at personal risk, exactly what the occupiers meant to turn into a target.
This writing task is optional and is not part of your auto-graded score. The feedback below checks only the basics — length, spelling, and grammar — not whether your ideas are right or wrong. It is meant for classroom discussion and creative practice, so feel free to use your imagination!
Writing Task — Part 3 “The Thing in My Fist”
Annemarie held her friend’s star so hard it marked her palm. Write about protecting something — or someone — that mattered to you: a secret kept, a friend defended, a promise held onto. What was your ‘imprint’ — the mark the protecting left on you? 6–10 sentences. End with what the experience taught you about courage.
No right or wrong — close the screen and tell someone nearby what happened in this part. Can’t find anyone? Tell yourself out loud. The moment you teach it, you truly understand it.
Part 3 Complete!
You finished Chapters 5–6 of Number the Stars.
Here are your auto-graded results:
The best last step is to teach it. In your own words, explain what happened — retell a favorite scene, teach a character’s big choice, or sum up the main idea for a parent, friend, or classmate. When you can teach it clearly, you truly own it.
Independent study guide by Garden Heights. Not affiliated with or endorsed by Lois Lowry. Contains original analysis only; no text from the novel is reproduced. Reference text: This workbook follows Lois Lowry’s classic text (the standard Puffin edition sold worldwide). Revised 2023 UK editions change some wording and may not match the vocabulary studied here.