COURAGE & DEFIANCE

Patriotic men and women fight against German occupiers in this absorbing chronicle of the World War II resistance movement in Denmark.

When Denmark was invaded in April 1940, the Danish government surrendered almost immediately. For Danes like Tommy Sneum, a young lieutenant in Denmark’s tiny air force, this quick capitulation was unacceptable. Sneum escaped to Great Britain and worked on espionage and sabotage operations in occupied Denmark. His is one of several stories Hopkinson tells. Two others are those of saboteur Niels Skov and the members of Holger Danske 2, a group involved in extensive sabotage activities. Passing mention is given to the Churchill Club, a small but remarkably effective student resistance group, now the subject of a full-length book, The Boys Who Challenged Hitler, by Phillip Hoose (2015). A significant portion of text discusses the extraordinary efforts of Danes to rescue 95 percent of their Jewish countrymen, a subject covered in more detail in other books, most notably in Ellen Levine’s Darkness Over Denmark (2000).

An informative, often gripping chronicle of daring, heroic acts of young men and women who did not stand by as their country was occupied by a dangerous enemy.