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

The Boys Who Challenged Hitler: Knud Pedersen and the Churchill Club by Phillip Hoose is a young adult (YA) nonfiction book published in 2015. Hoose, who previously received a Newbery Honor for Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice, was inspired to write the book after learning about the Churchill Club on a visit to the Museum of Danish Resistance in Copenhagen. The book is composed of Hoose’s research-based narration of the actions and events surrounding the Churchill Club as well as detailed first-person accounts by Knud Pedersen, a leading figure of the club.

On April 9, 1940, Hitler invades Denmark. Knud Pedersen is a 14-year-old boy living in the industrial town of Odense. The son of a reverend, Knud is a good student, passionate about art, and leads a happy life surrounded by a large family. He becomes politically aware following the invasion. Deeply ashamed of the Danes’ easy surrender to the Nazis and disillusioned by the reluctance of Denmark’s authorities to resist Hitler, Knud and his brother Jens start a resistance unit with their friends called the RAF Club, in honor of the British Royal Air Force. The RAF Club sabotages the German army, vandalizing directional signs and cutting telephone wires leading to its barracks. The Germans order Danish police to find and punish the boys.

Knud’s father is assigned a new post and the Pedersen family moves to the city of Aalborg. There, Knud and Jens start another resistance unit, called the Churchill Club, with friends from their new school. Keeping it a secret from their families, the boys conduct sabotage against the German army. They start with vandalism before moving on to more serious acts like arson and stealing weapons. The boys become adept at disabling German vehicles and stealing weapons from soldiers. Targeting the coat rooms of cafés, they amass a large cache of stolen guns, knives, grenades, and bayonets, though they cannot bring themselves to use the weapons to kill. On their biggest mission, they blow up a boxcar containing airplane equipment. When the Danish firemen arrive, it is obvious that they are working with deliberate slowness to let the fire cause more damage, and the boys are proud to see Danes finally showing signs of resistance.

The Germans give the Danish police an ultimatum: they must arrest the Churchill Club, or else the Gestapo—the Nazi police—will take over the investigation and punish the boys severely. Special investigators arrive from Copenhagen. With the help of a waitress from one of the cafés where the boys have stolen weapons, they eventually find and arrest all the members of the club. The news of their arrest garners attention in Denmark and abroad, acting as a catalyst for a widespread resistance movement among the Danes.

The boys are found guilty in court and sentenced to terms in prison ranging from one year and six months to three years. In Nyborg State Prison, they are subject to dehumanizing treatment that leaves them with lasting psychological trauma. After their release, it is difficult for them to return to civilian life. The club disperses. Some boys return to school while others, including Knud, join the official British-led resistance. When Germany surrenders in May 1945, Knud works with the resistance to transition operations back to Danish authorities but is frustrated by the slow pace of change and the leniency being shown to Nazi collaborators.

Five years later, in 1950, Knud is a penniless art student when, by chance, he sees a headline that the Churchill Club will meet Winston Churchill. After the meeting, during Churchill’s speech, Knud is surprised to find himself seated in the VIP box next to a prince and an admiral on the basis of his membership in the Churchill Club.

Knud goes on to become an important artist and start the famous art lending library in Copenhagen. He has three children with his wife. The other members of the Churchill Club likewise embark on careers and start families, but the experiences of imprisonment, war, and sabotage work leave many of them with lifelong psychological scars.