A number of Danes continued to distrust King Christian after the Easter Crisis of 1920, although they liked his family. Christian X probably would have been best known for his efforts to continue Danish monarchist rule had Germany not invaded his country. At that time, King Christian X's genuine concern for his people and his persistent, quiet, personal resistance during the occupation endeared him to the Danish people. Today Christian X is seen as one of the most popular monarchs in Danish history, and Danes who were alive during his rule genuinely love him. The Danish friend, Annelise Platt, who inspired Number the Stars and to whom Lowry dedicates the book, probably only considered King Christian X in the positive light that is reflected throughout the book.

My own family was very much affected by the 1920 plebiscites. Aabenraa, my mother's hometown, is one of the Northern Schleswig cities that rejoined Denmark in 1920. At the time, my grandfather, Oscar Schmidt, a Danish citizen, was living in the area with his three Danish children; his first wife had died in the influenza epidemic that swept Europe in 1918. My grandmother, Helen Jacobs (Mutti), a German citizen, was an apprentice milliner in the area, having moved north from the town of Wesselburen.

In 1920 Mutti became a Danish citizen and my grandfather's second wife. Germany's 1940 invasion of my grandmother's new home country meant she was eventually denied visitation rights to her Wesselburen family (parents, two sisters, brothers-in-law, nieces and nephews), although family friends who served in the German army managed to bring her letters from home and to take food and medicine to her family.

During the last 27 months of World War II, when Hitler poured all of Germany's resources into her army, my grandmother lost contact with her family, her mother died because she was unable to secure needed medicine, and Mutti learned of her mother's death only after the 1945 liberation of Denmark.

On the many nights when Mutti and my mother hustled to the safety of a bomb shelter as Allied planes flew over Denmark on night raids of Germany, my grandmother must have wondered often whether the planes she heard droning overhead were carrying bombs for her hometown.

In 1970, when my mother took my sister and me to meet her family in Denmark and Germany, I met my German Opa and other relatives, including some who had served in the German army and an uncle who had been a Hitler Youth Leader during the war. At the time, everyone was celebrating my mother's return, and I did not know German.

As a child, I missed the opportunity to learn about my Opa's views of this part of history he lived and the view of my other German relatives. Because Mutti visited our North Carolina home often, I heard her views and knew long before I consulted published histories that her view of King Christian X differed from my mother's view.

Mutti once told me King Christian X had learned to be a good king, and such maturation, she explained, could happen to any leader at any time.

To learn the story of King Christian X's maturation, navigate back to the King Christian X room and go to April 9, 1940.