Awesome / Number the Stars

• Kirsti's fearless attitude towards the Nazi soldiers that stopped and interrogated her, Annemarie, and Ellen when they were running in the street as an Establishing Character Moment. A Nazi soldier tries to fondle her hair, and she smacks it away and tells him to shove off. Annemarie is worried, but the soldier can't help being impressed that she's a little spitfire, saying Kirsti is like his own daughter.
• The Resistance and the actions of many ordinary Danes like the Johannsens and Uncle Henrik (along with his fishermen peers) in fighting back against the Nazis and saving their Jewish neighbors and friends, despite knowing they're risking their lives for their actions, because as Mrs. Johannsen says: "That's what friends do. They help each other."
• It's implied that the Rosens and Johannsens had talked out what to do if the Nazi invasion got worse, given how calm they are when the soldiers come. Mr. Johannsen says Ellen is staying with them, while the Rosens go into hiding.
• Peter and Lise. Both were members of the Danish Resistance and were killed for it, yet they'd do it again. Despite the risk and getting shot in the arm, Peter not only kept up his Resistance work, but smuggled little luxuries to the Johannsens.
• Mr. Johannsen telling the Nazis off when they harass his family in the middle of the night, try to find incriminating evidence that Ellen (as Lise) is Jewish, and insinuate that Mrs. Johannsen slept with the milkman. He then presents the photos taken of all three of his daughters as "proof" (his late blonde daughter Lise was raven-haired at birth). It's also Not an Act; he treats Ellen like his own daughter, and always steps to her defense.
• When the girls go with their mother to visit Uncle Henrik, a soldier interrogates them about if it's a New Year celebration. (He's referring to the Jewish New Year.) As Mrs. Johannsen goes for Obfuscating Stupidity, Kirsti ends up distracting him by showing off her "shiny black shoes" and telling him to look at them, causing the soldier to chuckle and move on. Kirsti ended up saving her family just by being herself.
• The Johannsen parents' quick thinking in taking Ellen to safety, especially when Mrs. Johannsen tells her husband it'd be less suspicious if he stayed home and went to work while she takes the girls to her brother's house.
  • Her act in convincing the Nazis from opening the coffin containing her fake dead Aunt Birte, despite receiving a slap from one of them for her troubles.
• The drugged handkerchiefs, which would damage the Nazis' hunting dogs' sense of smell in order to enable ships to successfully smuggle the Danish Jews to neutral Sweden. The afterword explains that it was a real invention, with cocaine and rabbit blood, that saved thousands of lives.
• Like her mother, Annemarie makes Obfuscating Stupidity a moment of awesome when the Nazis stop her on her way to deliver her uncle's lunch and the handkerchief. She also briefly calls them out when they ask if she has meat in the picnic basket. Annemarie bluntly replies, "We don't have any meat. Your soldiers take it away from us."
• Henrik's reaction when Annemarie gives him the basket. She apologizes that the Nazis stole his lunch. Henrik grins and says he hopes the dogs choke on the bread.