When ordinary people became extraordinary heroes
The underground networks that fought against darkness
The Danish Resistance Movement
When SS General Werner Best ordered the roundup of Danish Jews in October 1943, the Danish resistance learned of the plan three days in advance from a German shipping attaché, Georg Duckwitz. The resistance created a mass evacuation using fishing bo...
The Council to Aid Jews (Żegota)
Żegota was unique: a government-in-exile agency specifically dedicated to rescuing Jews. Created in December 1942 by the Polish Underground State, it operated clandestinely under the leadership of Julian Grobelny and Wanda Krasnodębska. It had depa...
Milorg (Military Organization)
Norway's resistance achieved one of the most important acts of sabotage in history at Vemork Norsk Hydro plant. Heavy water was essential for Nazi atomic research. In 1943, nine Norwegian commandos parachuted onto the Hardangervidda plateau in midwin...
Combat (Southern Zone Network)
Virginia Hall was an American with a wooden leg ("Cuthbert") who spoke fluent French and German. Rejected from the State Department for her disability and gender, she joined British SOE in 1941. In Occupied France, she organized drop zones, escape ro...
Partisans (Various Groups)
Peenemünde and Mittelwerk, Germany's V-weapon production facilities, relied heavily on slave labor from Buchenwald and its sub-camps. The prisoners, mostly political prisoners and Soviet POWs, built the V-1 and V-2 rockets that terrorized London and...