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

Use this activity to engage all types of learners, while requiring that they refer to and incorporate details from the text over the course of the activity.

“Youth-Led, Anti-Nazi Resistance Movements in Europe”

In this activity, students will work in groups to research and present information on youth-led, anti-Nazi resistance movements in European countries.

In the text, The Churchill Club is a youth-led, anti-Nazi resistance movement in Denmark. During WWII, similar examples of youth-led resistance groups against Nazi Germany appeared throughout the invaded countries. While The Churchill Club left their insignia as signs of their actions, many of these youth-led movements worked primarily underground in their resistance campaigns.

In this activity, you will research a youth-led resistance movement in a country that was invaded by Nazi Germany. Use the following questions to guide your research.

• What was the name of this resistance movement and where was it located?
• In which ways did this movement work in its community?
• How did this resistance movement evade detection from the Nazis?
• Were there any well-known members of this resistance movement?
• What happened to this movement at the end of WWII?
• How does this group compare with The Churchill Club? Consider their motivations, location, approach, membership, etc.

After researching, present your findings to the class in the form of a research display. Several groups may combine their displays to form a mini-museum for a broader audience.

Teaching Suggestion: This activity encourages students to use their research skills and work in small groups. Each group should select a different country and group, if possible. Encourage students to be visual in their presentations, sharing pictures of the members when possible.

Differentiation Suggestion: For students who would benefit from a more focused approach, this activity can be reframed to concentrate on the Edelweiss Pirates and the White Rose resistance groups in Germany. In this vein, the class can be split into two groups, with each group tasked to research one of the two resistance movements, then compare and contrast their group to The Churchill Club. Students should be encouraged to use visuals in their presentations. The British Council’s compilation of brief information about both groups is a good stepping-stone for students’ independent research.

Paired Text Extension:

Almost 100 years before The Churchill Club’s resistance movement, transcendentalist author Henry David Thoreau wrote an essay on the importance of resisting laws that are inhumane and unjust to society.

• Read Thoreau’s “Civil Disobedience.”
• Consider how Thoreau’s definition of “civil disobedience” applies to the actions of both your chosen resistance group as well as the Churchill Club. Do you believe that Thoreau would agree with the actions of these two groups? Is their Justified Disobedience in Wartime a form of Civil Disobedience? Why or why not?

Teaching Suggestion: This Paired Text Extension encourages students to make links between the text with the study guide for Thoreau’s “Civil Disobedience.” Based on the level of the class, students may not be familiar with either the term “Civil Obedience” or Henry David Thoreau and the Transcendentalist movement. If this is the case, this Extension is an opportunity to introduce Thoreau’s influence on pacifist nonviolent civil rights thinkers, such as Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. Students may add these questions to their own research presentations, or these questions could be held as a separate in-class discussion, personal connection prompt, or in-group discussion after the Activity presentations.