Voices from the Borderlands

Meet the story of Arne Andreasen from Grindsted. Find the Gestapo headquarters in Kolding. And experience the last stop before hell: Frøslev Camp.
Set out on this journey and observe how your own moral compass shifts in step with the fates you encounter along the way. Where do you draw the line?
The line between good and evil?
Between morality and a shrug of the shoulders?
Between resignation and resistance?

Conflict brings your inner boundaries into sharp focus. Then as now.
Join this narrative and sense how the horrors of war still whisper through the walls. Visit places that, each in their own way, reveal how ordinary people were confronted with impossible choices. And ask yourself: What would I have done, if it had been me?

This route is based on the book I Was Here. The book was created through a collaboration between seven museums and destination organizations north and south of the Danish border. Ask for it at one of the museums featured on this page.

Where Is the Line Drawn?

After visiting the sites on this route, you may find yourself asking certain questions:
Where is the line drawn?
Between what we do — and what we allow to happen.
Between survival and responsibility.
Between morality and authority.

Along the route, you will encounter Johannes Rosendahl.
He found his answer in the darkness:

The starry sky above me.
And the moral law within me.

What is your answer?
How far are you willing to go in the fight for what you hold dear?

Mark – Museum of a New Danish History

Grindsted – Hear the Stones Speak

In and around Grindsted stand memorials to those who chose to act, even when the price was high.

© Destination Trekantomraadet. Foto: Frame & Work

Here, later generations have set stones in memory of people who stood firm — some fell in battle, some died in German camps, others returned home, marked for life.
Arne Andreasen returned.

Arne chose to join the resistance movement when he was asked. He knew his choice could cost him everything. He was fully aware that his wife and children would be affected if he were captured.

When he was arrested, the Germans took him to Staldgården in Kolding. Here, he was interrogated by the Gestapo. From there, he was transferred to Frøslev Camp, where daily life was bearable enough — but where the fear of deportation hung constantly like a heavy shadow over the barracks.

During the night of 11–12 January, Arne was selected for transport. He was sent to Neuengamme. When they arrived at the camp, a Danish prisoner shouted to them:

“You have arrived in hell.”

Arne survived his encounter with hell.
But only just.
When he returned home, he weighed 40 kilos.

Later, he wrote:

“I knew that my choices had had major consequences for the whole family.
I did not know whether Karen understood why I had risked everything.
But I was convinced that one day my children would understand —
and perhaps even be proud of me.”

The stones in Grindsted do not only tell of war, but of the moment when a person asks themselves: What do I do when the choice is difficult?
Will I stand up for what I believe in — or will I lower my head and blend into the crowd?
What is your choice?

In the book I Was Here, you will find a link to the route around the war memorials in Grindsted. It directs you to the app Useum, available in the App Store or Google Play. If you do not have the app, download it and find War Memorials on the museum pages.

Mark – Museum of a New Danish History tells the stories of ordinary people’s lives, choices and dreams. The museum presents Denmark’s modern history, focusing on bringing the experiences and dilemmas of the past close to today’s museum visitors. Read more here about Mark - Museum.

Staldgården, Kolding – Words That Shine in the Darkness

In Kolding stands Staldgården, with its three white wings.
Beautiful and bright — yet darkness lingers in the corners.

© Destination Trekantomraadet. Foto: Frame & Work

From 1943 to 1945, the Gestapo had its regional headquarters here.
More than 1,300 Danish resistance members were arrested, interrogated and tortured within these walls.

Behind the heavy door to Zelle II, prisoners scratched their names into the wall — proof that they had been here: a silent rebellion against oblivion.

One of them was the community college teacher Johannes Rosendahl. Originally a pacifist, he chose to join the resistance movement because of the persecution of Jews.

He was tortured. Severely and brutally.
Both by the Gestapo.
And by Danish collaborators:

“It is repugnant to think of the sadists one was subjected to.
The Danes were the worst, but the Germans were not much better.”

He was offered release from further beatings if he betrayed his comrades. But he replied: The cheapest way out is not always the right one.

During his interrogations, he found solace in a quotation by the German philosopher Immanuel Kant:

“Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the more often and steadily one reflects upon them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.”

The quotation was scratched into the wall.
And in the darkness, the words became his guiding light.

On the wall, he himself wrote a variation on Nietzsche’s words:
“Halte hoch deine höchste Hoffnung.”
Hold fast to your highest hope.

The words formed a bridge to a civilized world. In the cell, you stand on the threshold between two worlds: one behind the door, one in front of it. And you sense how close they can lie.

At Staldgården, you can complete the chapter on Johannes Rosendahl, Evald Hansen and Jens Thue Jensen in the book I Was Here. Here, you will receive a copy of Jens’ farewell letter to his family, written before his execution on 10 March 1945, at just 22 years of age.

When you visit Staldgården, you can enter Gestapo Zelle II, preserved as it was when Johannes Rosendahl, Jens Thue Jensen and Evald Hansen were tortured by SS officers and their Danish collaborators. You can listen to a vivid audio narrative of the events. Or take part in a digital city walk and meet Gerda and Jørgen — resistance members with the Gestapo close on their heels. Read about Staldgaarden in Kolding here. 

Frøslev Camp – The Last Stop Before Hell … and the First Step Back to Everyday Life

Just west of Padborg lies Frøslev Camp.
Built in 1944 as a Danish attempt to save its own citizens from deportation to Germany.
Here, they were to be imprisoned — but not exterminated.
Nevertheless, more than 1,600 were sent on to concentration camps in the south.

For this reason, the welcome upon arrival at the camp reads:

“Welcome to the Gestapo prison camp — the last stop before hell.”

Today, you can see the low barracks and the high fences where prisoners lived in constant fear of being placed on the list of those selected for transport — southwards.

© Destination Trekantomraadet. Foto: Frame & Work

From War to Everyday Life – The Difficult Aftermath

But Frøslev Camp also tells another story — the one that begins after May 1945.
In the special exhibition From War to Everyday Life, you see how both resistance members and those convicted of collaboration struggled to find their footing in the new Denmark. How do you heal — and judge — at the same time?

Freedom came, but the struggle over right and wrong continued. Many resistance members felt that the desire to ‘move on quickly’ came to dominate the narrative of the five cursed years of occupation. In this way, the Danish policy of cooperation with the occupying German authorities seemed to prevail.

The feeling among many resistance fighters was:
We won the war. But we lost the story.

After the war, Danish resistance members were replaced by those convicted in the post-war trials, and the camp changed its name to Fårhus Camp.

Here, the poles shifted — from the clear enemy images of the occupation to the new divisions of the post-war period. But when boundaries are drawn too sharply, nuances disappear. The difficult aftermath was not only about right and wrong, but about people who had to live on with their choices.

When you visit the Frøslev Camp Museum, you can receive a copy of a photograph illegally taken in the camp by Kjeld Feilberg. You can place it in your book I Was Here.

At Frøslev Camp, you can walk through the original barracks, preserved much as they were during the war. You can experience permanent exhibitions and the special exhibition From War to Everyday Life, which shows how the war continued after liberation — in legal and moral reckonings — and thus focuses on not only how one survives, but how one lives on.