McMusing: "That Can't Ever Happen Here"
A Reflection Based on "Number the Stars"
For over thirty years, I prepared teachers for the classroom. As part of this, I taught children’s literature. I firmly believed that anything that needed to be said could be said through a children’s book. I much preferred to teach history through literature versus the dry, somewhat boring presentations in textbooks. One rarely builds empathy by reading a textbook, though they do have a place in establishing facts, unless rewritten to “whitewash” atrocities. But I digress.
Let me digress a bit further to explain how I came to this McMusing. Yesterday, Scott and I watched the Netflix movie One Life. I cannot recommend this movie, which is based on a true story, enough!
As I watched the city of Prague transform with all the trappings of the powerful and evil occupation forces of the Nazi regime, I was reminded of the book, Number the Stars, written by Lois Lowry.
Number the Stars by Lois Lowry is a historical novel set in Nazi-occupied Denmark during World War II, following 10-year-old Annemarie Johansen as she becomes involved in a secret effort to save her Jewish friend, Ellen Rosen. When the Nazis begin relocating Danish Jews, Annemarie’s family hides Ellen and helps her escape to safety in Sweden. Through courage, quick thinking, and the quiet bravery of ordinary people, the Johansens—and many other Danes—risk their lives to resist the occupation. The story highlights themes of friendship, sacrifice, and the quiet heroism that flourishes in the face of fear. (ChatGPT Summary)
I originally chose this book for the class to read together because the author’s skill at creating page-turner endings to chapters is incomparable (what I learned about this shows up in my writing often). My goal was to recreate teacher read-aloud strategies that keep children anticipating what comes next. All sorts of inference and prediction skills can be taught this way! What I did not expect was how reading this book with my students every year and then listening to their discussions and predictions would impact me.
The memory that stands out the most was the reading of Chapter 3, when a Nazi soldier orders the three girls to halt. In the very tense engagement, the girls learned that running looked suspicious. My students always arrived ready to discuss after reading that chapter.
I remember one class discussion in particular. I was often surprised by how little some of the students who came to the college from Christian homes and schools knew about the atrocities the powerful inflicted on other humans. They were well educated, for the most part excellent students, but knew very little about the civil rights movement, the treatment of Native Americans, or the Holocaust. Facts yes (maybe), but not the systemic harm that wreaked havoc in the lives of those the powerful targeted.
On this day, a student said, “Why were there soldiers on the corner?”
That question captured me then, as it did again this week when pictures of the National Guard troops in front of the Washington Monument and Capitol building appeared in my newsfeed.
“Why are there soldiers on the corner?” I asked.
The book discussion that launched from that student’s question was remarkable. I remember looking out the window and saying, “Almost all of you walked by the corner across from the dorm on your way to class today. It would have been like a soldier standing on that corner.” In my mind, I could see that soldier there monitoring my students—and me.
They all agreed that the soldier was there to control the people, and then agreed that it would never happen in the United States.
But it has. I wonder if they were listening, not only in class that day but in all the days leading up to today.
I have visited Washington, DC three times as an adult. I grew up in California and did not know much existed east of the Mississippi. The first visit was on a trip to visit a friend who had moved to Virginia. She picked me up at the airport and took me on a quick tour of the capitol. I was in awe. The buildings and monuments no longer only existed in images in books and on TV and computer screens.
At one point, while gazing upon our national treasures, I said, “It is remarkable that there aren’t police everywhere standing guard over all of this!”
What she said to me, though likely not exactly this, but close, was as follows. “Oh, don’t worry, they are monitoring everything by camera.” She pointed to several that I had not noticed. “The government wants this to feel like the people’s city, not a guarded monument. They want people to feel safe, not because there are policemen everywhere, but by the very lack of such presence. There are plenty of police in the places where they are necessary, such as the entrance to the White House.”
This begs the question: “Why are there soldiers on the corner?” What I learned that day was that police presence is not what helps people feel safe, though I am sure some would disagree. To those who disagree, I ask, “What freedoms will you relinquish for a sense of safety that comes from weapons and control?”
We as a nation are being anesthetized to symbols of power and control. And one day, a soldier may stand on the street corner you pass by on a daily basis and yell, “Halt.” But like the class decided that day, we surely can say, “That can’t ever happen here.”
“And they are beginning to realize that the world they live in is a place where the right thing is often hard, sometimes dangerous, and frequently unpopular.”
― Lois Lowry, Number the Stars
Thank you for this. I would have enjoyed your class discussions I think! Thank you for casting light on important issues by writing about them.