Museum of Danish Resistance in Copenhagen - on a romantic weekend away

06 Mar, 2026

Almost titled this blog ‘what I did on my holidays’ - a recent weekend away with Mrs Yunzi took us to the Danish capital city, Copenhagen. On the Saturday we walked ourselves to exhaustion trying to see a number of tourist sites across the city. First off was the statue of the little mermaid which was entirely underwhelming, but second we decided to stop (we means I in this instance) off at the Museum of Danish Resistance nearby and on our walking route to the rather more picturesque Nyhaven.

The museum's name in Danish is, “Frihedsmuseet”, would translate literally as “Freedom Museum” but given how they arrange the stories, I think the standard English ‘Museum of Danish resistance’ is probably more accurate in terms of content. The museum follows the stories of Danes through the period prior to WW2 when the resistance, such as it was, was largely communist rabble rousers, through the entire period of the war covering the Jewish persecution within the city, the cruelty meted out by the Germans as well as the sabotage and publications by the resistance. The audio guides and visual displays (both still and video) are excellent and offered in English or Danish, but not, I note, in German.

The stories also cover for one of the Danes, his progress through the Nazi party and how that developed from an occupying power that largely left the citizens alone, to a full despotic control where freedom of speech and movement were all controlled by the Gestapo. The story ends largely at the end of the war with some nice story boards on liberation by the British, but doesn’t really cover any part of the subsequent story. I gained a new insight into this a week later with a random social media video of a young Danish guy¹. The video describes how the Danish state made it retroactively illegal to have worked with the Nazis and a number of Danes were subsequently executed (shot). The place of that execution still exists in a park on the edge of Christiania in Copenhagen (so fairly central) as a concrete slab and a metal drain said to be for the blood.²

The museum itself is well worth a visit and we spent a lot longer there than I’d anticipated. The basic history I’m familiar with, but seeing the specifics as to how Danes had either resisted or worked with the Nazis and how the city had tried to assist fleeing Jews by taking them across to neutral Sweden (not always entirely altruistically as certainly money was often exchanged) was fascinating for those with an interest in WWII and later history. We didn't go and see the execution point, but that video and later research filled in some of the blanks that weren't covered in any depth in the museum. The Danes certainly carried out their own form of justice on those who had collaborated. As with Vichy France, women who had (willingly or not) been with German soldiers were also treated with contempt. We didn't take pictures inside the museum. The displays include concentration camp uniforms, bullet holed clothing as well as the swastika of course and symbols of the SS and Storm Afdeling (SA) which was the Danish version of the brownshirts. None of this really seemed appropriate to have in my phones camera role.

The museum sits in Churchillparken or Churchill Park built in commemoration of the role Britain and our war time leader played in the liberation of the city. Worth a stop is also the sculpture of a gloriously brave man, Major Anders Lassen³. The only non commonwealth recipient of the Victoria Cross, his exploits in the too few years he lived to fight, are really quite remarkable. He also got played in the movie Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare by Alan Ritchson which I personally think, whilst not even close to a fitting tribute, portrays him as he’d wish to be remembered.