99 pages • 3 hours read
The Boys Who Challenged Hitler: Knud Pedersen and the Churchill Club
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Chapters 4-5Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 4 Summary: “Learning to Breathe”
Danes show their patriotism with gestures like buying “King’s Badges” (39) in jewelry shops and refusing to speak German at school. Some Danish businesses collaborate with the Germans, providing the army with housing and weapons.
The Churchill Club begins its sabotage. As in Odense, they vandalize German directional signs. They also paint their insignia, a tilted swastika with “arrows shooting out of the top of each arm, like thunderbolts” (34), around Aalborg.
The club decides to aim for a larger target. It chooses the Fuchs Construction company, a German collaborator which makes airport equipment that helps the Nazis attack Norway. Knud, Eigil, Helge, and Børge tell their parents they are playing bridge and head to the airport, which is heavily patrolled by Germans. When they get there, Børge smashes out three windows with a stick, making a loud noise that causes Eigil to wet his pants from fear. The boys enter an office and smash a framed portrait of Hitler. They set fire to it along with a pile of architectural drawings, receipts, and business cards. They also steal a typewriter and leveler.
The next day, the other boys point out that they did not leave a calling card to make their message clear.
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