Skip to main content

Features

The Boys Who Challenged Hitler: Knud Pedersen and the Churchill Club by Phillip Hoose

May 2015

At the outset of World War II, Denmark did not resist German occupation. Deeply ashamed of his nation's leaders, 15-year-old Knud Pedersen resolved with his brother and a handful of schoolmates to take action against the Nazis if the adults would not. Naming their secret club after the fiery British leader, the young patriots in the Churchill Club committed countless acts of sabotage, infuriating the Germans, who eventually had the boys arrested. Nevertheless, the boys' exploits and eventual imprisonment helped spark a full-blown Danish resistance.