Museum of Danish Resistance, Historical war museum in Copenhagen, Denmark
The Museum of Danish Resistance, known in Danish as Frihedsmuseet, is a history museum in Copenhagen dedicated to documenting the Danish resistance during World War II. It sits in the Churchillparken near the harbour and displays original radios, uniforms, underground newspapers, photographs, and personal objects from that period.
The museum first opened in 1957, not long after the war ended, to preserve memory of the organized resistance against German occupation from 1940 to 1945. The original building was badly damaged by a fire in 2013, and the museum reopened in 2020 in a new building on the same site after years of reconstruction.
The museum is known in Danish as Frihedsmuseet, meaning "Museum of Freedom", and this name reflects how Danes still remember the resistance today. The collection is not about generals or politics, but about teachers, printers, and fishermen who made difficult choices.
The museum sits in the Churchillparken, a green area between Amalienborg Palace and the harbour, and is easy to reach on foot from the city centre. Some sections of the exhibition contain personal stories and difficult images, so it is worth going at your own pace and taking breaks if needed.
The museum holds an original printing press used during the war to produce underground newspapers, and visitors can handle reprints of some of these illegal publications. The tools and techniques used to get around censorship are explained in detail, and they feel surprisingly inventive given the limited resources available at the time.
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