The Desperate Longing for Freedom

When studying history in junior high school, I was interested in issues concerning World War II. However, busy with preparing for exams, I did not have sufficient time to explore more details. Fortunately, reading Number the Stars by Lois Lowry enabled me to have a deeper understanding the historical contexts then. After reading it, I found it insightful and gained three main inspirations: the value of liberty, the inherent kindness in human nature, and the importance of human intelligence.

To start with, I am shocked by the setting –a highly controlled society implementing policies that were harsher than I can imagine. Danish people could not live a normal life in a society under the control of Nazi government at that time. For example, they could not leave the house at will unless there was an emergency. Nor could they talk in groups, and kids running on the road would even be stopped by Nazi soldiers. Danish people had no choice but to abide by all the orders. On the contrary, nowadays in Taiwan, we are blessed to live a free life. We enjoy the freedom of speech. We can also hold demonstrations or go on a strike for unfair or improper treatment. Furthermore, we do not have to worry about being caught by soldiers or the police. However, in countries like China and North Korea, they have to talk very cautiously, and they had better not mention anything about the government. I am really fortunate to live in Taiwan. Nevertheless, I understand there are still some highly controlled societies in the world, so I hope I can strive for world peace even though I am merely a high school student.

I am also impressed with the bright sides of human nature presented in this book. In such a war-torn society, the main character, Annemarie, as well as her relatives and friends, still helped each other to escape from that autocratic society, not only for their own survival, but also for that of others. This illuminates that human beings are inherently kind, even in critical situations. It reminds me of the 311 tsunami in Japan. The destruction of the nuclear power plant resulted in lack of supplies and the subsequent economic recession. However, at that time, many countries, including Taiwan, did Japan a favor by giving them food, medical supplies, etc. It was compassion that helped Japanese people go through miserable days.

The characters’ wisdom and flexibility also startle me a lot. In the story, Annemarie’s mother held a fake funeral in order to gather everyone to discuss an important matter. Unfortunately, the Nazi soldiers were suspicious of their gathering and came to ask them to open the fake coffin. If the soldiers found that they were gathering to talk about such an issue, they would certainly be executed. Just when everyone was at a loss, Annemarie’s mother told the Nazi soldiers that the person in the coffin had died of a contagious disease. Then the Nazi soldiers left at once for fear that he might be infected. This makes me realize how powerful human intelligence is and that we need to think calmly and make appropriate decisions even under emergent circumstances. For instance, the outbreak of COVID-19 in recent years prevents people from going to work in companies or learning at schools, but with state-of-the-art technologies, we immediately switch to online classes to solve the problem. From my point of view, that is why human beings are different from other creatures. We are constantly accumulating wisdom and learning from experience, and day by day, we’re getting smarter as a result of collective intelligence.

After reading this book, I wondered why the title is called “Number the Stars.” Then I find a cruel fact: the star was used to identify the Jews. Sadly, 80 years later, there is still racist news all around the world, such as discrimination against African Americans or refugees. People tend to put labels on others, but it makes the world a chaos. As a global citizen, what we should do is respect diversity and appreciate different cultural backgrounds with the kindness and wisdom we are endowed with, so that human being can have a bright future.