The Boys Who Challenged Hitler: Chapters 4–8

by Phillip Hoose
In 1940, a group of Danish teens formed a secret resistance group called the Churchill Club in order to oppose the Nazi regime. In this nonfiction account, Phillip Hoose traces the development and accomplishments of the club.

Here are links to our lists for the book: Introduction–Chapter 3, Chapters 4–8, Chapters 9–14, Chapter 15–Epilogue
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. solidarity
    a union of interests or purposes among members of a group
    Some purchased “King’s Badges,” offered in jewelry shops in silver or gold, as a symbol of solidarity with the government.
  2. facilitate
    be of use
    Some Danish manufacturers collaborated with their “protectors” by making weapons and parts to facilitate German war plans.
  3. compliant
    disposed to act in accordance with someone's wishes
    The Fuchs Company was a prime example of everything the Churchill Club hated about the Danish government’s compliant posture.
  4. reconnaissance
    the act of scouting, especially to gain information
    One day during our bicycle reconnaissance we found three large German transport trucks unguarded in a field.
  5. affront
    a deliberately offensive act
    The vehicles we wanted to destroy most were lined up right outside my room at Budolfi Square. We could see them through the curtain at every Churchill Club meeting. They were an eyesore, an affront, an insult.
  6. desensitize
    cause to be less responsive to or affected by something
    A typical military inductee went through basic training or boot camp, where one’s personality was stripped to the core, desensitized to accept the horror of war as part of the job, and rebuilt as a warrior.
  7. sketchy
    giving only major points; lacking completeness
    Details were sketchy, but it was clear Hans Jøergen had been the leader.
  8. combustible
    capable of igniting and burning
    The Churchill Club’s “Professor” — Mogens Fjellerup — converted an elevated chamber on the monastery’s second floor into a chemical laboratory. There, he mixed combustible materials smuggled from Cathedral School’s chemistry classroom.
  9. wholesale
    on a large scale without careful discrimination
    It was the largest-scale military confrontation in history. There were ferocious battles, marked by wholesale destruction and immense loss of life due to combat, starvation, exposure, disease, and massacres.
  10. accost
    approach and speak to someone aggressively or insistently
    “We’d accost soldiers after a parade or at a railway station and while a couple of us engaged them in friendly conversation, the others would steal the rifles they’d propped against a wall or bench.”
  11. flak
    artillery designed to shoot upward at airplanes
    One evening several of us cycled over the Limfjorden Bridge to Noerresundby with the goal of destroying an antiaircraft cannon — the Germans called it a “flak cannon.”
  12. revile
    spread negative information about
    Merchants who sold to them were reviled by many as traitors.
  13. subside
    wear off or die down
    A setting allowed you to fire one shot at a time, which was helpful in our circumstance, when a hymn could suddenly subside or end altogether.
  14. raucous
    unpleasantly loud and harsh
    One night after an especially raucous Churchill Club meeting I sat in my room with the door shut and tried to stop my head from spinning.
  15. ultimatum
    a final peremptory demand
    The German command had issued an ultimatum to Danish police: either you identify and arrest whoever has been damaging our property and stealing our weapons, or we’ll find them ourselves, with drastic results for the criminals.
Created on Sat Jan 04 12:05:47 EST 2020 (updated Thu Aug 07 17:40:35 EDT 2025)

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