Thorkild saw Tivoli go up in flames

Resistance fighter Thorkild Lund-Jensen goes underground. He is one of the five main characters you can get acquainted with at the Museum of Danish Resistance.

It is around 2 AM at night on the 25th of June 1944, when Thorkild Lund-Jensen hears some deafening explosions. Along with his roommates at Nordisk student dormitories in Copenhagen, he goes to the 5th floor to see where the explosions might be coming from.

It is a terrifying sight that greets the young engineering students. The sky above the central part of Copenhagen is a fiery blaze. The Germans have blown up Tivoli, as a retaliation for the resistance movement’s sabotage operations.

Thorkild needs to see what has happened. He drives into the old amusement park. Here, he sees the wooden buildings go up in smoke and at a terrifying pace. The residents of Copenhagen are infuriated.

Thorkild Lund-Jensen joins the underground army under Corps Ågesen that same year.

Flabbergasted by the attacks against the Jews

Already prior to joining the resistance movement, Thorkild Lund-Jensen displayed his contempt for the Danish Nazis. One such instance was when he and his classmates showed up at a Nazi meeting in the Student Union to disrupt their meeting with applause and whistles. An encounter that ends up getting physical when the students are violently thrown out by the Nazis.

Thorkild Lund-Jensen’s sympathy for the resistance movement is further enhanced in October 1943 during the German operations against the Jews. He writes in a letter to his parents on the 2nd October:

“I do not entirely know what to tell you about the situation, I am flabbergasted that such a thing could even happen in this country.”

“I hope that these events make the people who still think that we still need to take an opportunistic approach, realize now that the time has come for resistance in all its forms.”

As the war draws to an end, the Germans are in the process of dismantling the resistance group Corps Ågesen. Thorkild needs to go underground.

What makes a young man make the difficult choice to risk his life to defend his country? And how did his story unfold? You can delve into Thorkild Lund-Jensen’s story at the Museum of Danish Resistance.