Voices from the Borderlands - kopi

In the Name of Resistance

Tortured.
Sentenced.
Executed.
Starved.
Worn down.
Worked to death.

These are the harsh fates you encounter on this beautiful route, which takes you from Kolding via Frøslev Camp, just west of Padborg, to Neuengamme south of Hamburg.

Why does a person become a fighter?

When does something within you say: I can no longer remain silent. I must resist.
Even when it is dangerous.
Even when it goes against everything others say is sensible.
Even when those you love beg you not to.

During the German occupation of Denmark, resistance members did not only stand up to the enemy, but also to their own government, police, the press — and the majority of the Danish population.

And they knew the risk they were taking.

This route follows two men who paid the price for freedom: Jens Thue Jensen and Evald Hansen.
Both made a decisive choice.
Both experienced the darkness of Zelle II.
And both lost their lives in the struggle against Nazism.

One was executed at Ryvangen.
The other died of illness and exhaustion in German custody.

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.

The Will to Resist

You may think that the choice between right and wrong should be easy. That it was freedom against darkness.
But at the time, the choice was anything but clear.

All Danish authorities thundered against those who chose to resist.
Today, we honor them as freedom fighters.
During the war, they were shamed and labelled criminals.

The resistance insisted that human beings always have a choice. Even in the darkest of times.

The hymn Fight for All That You Hold Dear became an anthem for them:

Fight for all that you hold dear.
Die, if need be.
Then life is not so hard.
Nor death either.

What would you have chosen?
Would you have fought, even if everyone told you not to?
Would you have been willing to pay the ultimate price for a cause?

Staldgården, Kolding – Zelle II

On a sunny day, Staldgården’s buildings appear peaceful, bright and welcoming. But during the Second World War, these same buildings constituted the center of fear in Southern Jutland.

Here, the Gestapo had established its regional headquarters.

Behind the heavy doors, more than 1,300 Danish resistance members were interrogated and tortured.

In the cells, there were bloodstains on the wooden bunks and marks on the doors from heavy blows with truncheons. The lights were never turned off. As part of the torture, prisoners were given little or no food. They were struck with rifle butts. Beaten. Stripped naked and whipped.

© Destination Trekantomraadet. Foto: Frame & Work

Jens Thue Jensen was a young engineering student and a co-founder of the Bramming Group in south-west Jutland. He received weapons and explosives dropped from British aircraft. He took part in the liquidation of informers and in sabotage against the railway network.

In September 1944, he was forced to go underground, but in February 1945 he was arrested at Kolding railway station. At Staldgården, he was subjected to brutal interrogations, beatings and isolation.

Jens Thue Jensen was transferred to Vestre Prison in Copenhagen. On 10 March 1945, he was sentenced to death by a German military court and executed the same evening — less than two months before liberation.

A few hours before his execution, Jens wrote a final letter to his family. It begins:

“Dear Father, dear Mother, and dear all Sisters!
When you receive this letter, I will surely no longer be alive, but do not mourn me.
I have died with a clear conscience.”

Jens Thue Jensen followed his conscience rather than allowing himself to be subdued by fear.

When you visit Staldgården in Kolding, you can receive Jens’ farewell letter and place it in your book I Was Here.

Staldgården’s history dates to 1268. The stables and Koldinghus Castle once formed part of a fortified complex on the border with Southern Jutland. During the Second World War, the Gestapo requisitioned the three wings and turned them into regional headquarters. Today, you can experience Zelle II and hear many stories from the five cursed years of occupation. On the walls of the cell, several prisoners carved inscriptions, names and messages — testimonies to the atrocities they endured. Jens Thue Jensen also scratched his name into the wall as proof: I was here.

Frøslev Camp – A Breathing Space in the Darkness

But for most, it was the last stop before hell.

Frøslev Camp was built by the Danes to prevent the deportation of Danish resistance members, police officers and others arrested by the Germans.

For some, it worked.
But for 1,625 Danes, Frøslev Camp was only a transit point before a far more brutal stay in the German concentration camps.

Many prisoners arrived at Frøslev after long periods in prisons and harsh interrogations. A former prisoner, Jens Martin Sørensen, later wrote of his stay:

“For those of us who had spent so long in cells
and were later to experience actual German concentration camps,
Frøslev Camp would be remembered as a small paradise on earth —
except that we could not leave through the barbed wire.”

In Frøslev Camp, prisoners did not starve.
They wore their own clothes.
They performed forced labor — but not heavy labor.

Yet a constant dread hung over the camp. The fear of being the next to appear on the list of those to be deported to one of the German camps. Is it me today? Is it one of my friends?

© Destination Trekantomraadet. Foto: Frame & Work

At 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.

Frøslev Camp was built in 1944 following an agreement between Danish and German authorities. Today, you can see the original barracks and permanent exhibitions about the time before and after liberation. See more here.

Neuengamme – Hell on Earth

For many, imprisonment did not end at Frøslev, but in Germany.

Evald Hansen was a young resistance member from Haderslev. At first, his work consisted mainly of repairing firearms and organizing a group of eight men. Later, he took part in weapons drops. He trained his group to handle weapons and explosives — and to carry out acts of sabotage.

In June 1944, several groups in Haderslev were exposed, and Evald Hansen was arrested. After harsh interrogations at Staldgården, he was sent to Frøslev and from there deported to the Neuengamme concentration camp near Hamburg on 15 December 1944.

Neuengamme was not an extermination camp, but a labour camp, where more than 100,000 prisoners were forced to perform hard labour. The camp was established to serve the Nazis’ architectural megalomania, in which Hamburg was to be transformed into Greater Germany’s gateway to the world. Prisoners were forced to produce bricks for the planned monumental buildings. Later in the war, production shifted to armaments.

In addition to the main camp, Neuengamme operated more than 85 satellite camps. The labour was mercilessly hard. Cold, disease, hunger, appalling food, diarrhea and extreme brutality defined everyday life. At least 42,900 people lost their lives — from exhaustion, starvation, illness, abuse or execution.

Evald Hansen died while working in the Spaldingstrasse satellite camp in Hamburg — exhausted and starved, like so many others.

At the service point at the Neuengamme Memorial, you can obtain a sticker with a drawing made by Jens Martin Sørensen depicting the prison camp and roll-call square. Place it in your book I Was Here.

\© Destination Trekantomraadet. Foto: Frame \& Work

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Neuengamme is today one of Germany’s largest memorial sites from the Second World War. Seventeen historic buildings remain. Here, you will find the main exhibition Time Traces and an exhibition on the administrative system that made the camps possible.

In the vast hall of the former brickworks, you can see the remains of one of the kilns where bricks were fired for Hitler’s plans for a new Hamburg. Here — and in the many satellite camps — tens of thousands of prisoners were worked to death.

Neuengamme is not a place you understand.
It is a place you feel.