Heroes live among us
Published: November 5, 2005
They were taken through that room to another and ordered to sit. A Gestapo officer asked for their identity cards and when they were produced, the officer declared: “False,” in German. “Nein,” said my father. “Nein” repeated Egeskjold.
The officer left the room and another told them in broken Danish that they must tell the truth, that it would be very bad for those who don’t.
The first officer returned and accurately identified both Dad and Egeskjold.
“No,” they insisted.
“You must tell the truth,” ordered the Gestapo officer and slapped them hard across the face.
They continued to deny their identities and the officer struck them both again.
That went on for some time with the interrogator frequently grabbing one or the other of them by the hair and pulling them to their feet.
Finally, the Gestapo officer said: “Ja, mein lieber herr,” (yes, my good man,) as if to say, “this is the end for you.”
He told them to wait while he phoned to find out more about them. While they waited, others in the room urged them to tell the truth.
When the officer returned, they were taken back to the room with Ove Neilsen and told to stand directly behind him. The Gestapo pointed to Dad and asked Neilsen to name him. Neilsen said “Anker Gram.” Dad insisted he was Hans Boysen. The Gestapo officer pointed to Egeskjold and Neilsen accurately named him. “Jens Peter Jensen,” reiterated Egeskjold.
Then Nielsen was commanded to give a little speech encouraging them to tell the truth.
“I have been a prisoner for some time,” said an exhausted-looking Nielsen. “I have learned it doesn’t pay to lie to the Gestapo. “It is best to tell all,” he said, his voice becoming weaker and weaker.
According to Egeskjold, my father looked very angry at this and yelled at Neilsen to speak louder, but Neilsen just sat down and said he couldn’t say more.
After a few more whacks to the head with the handle of a whip, my father learned his first lesson in surviving interrogations.
“It was useless to deny anything they knew for sure.” He and then Egeskjold admitted their true identities.
The interrogation continued as the Gestapo tried to establish what each of them had been doing in the underground. They knew, and only Neilsen could have told them, that one of them was active in sabotage and the other in the newspaper. Either Nielsen didn’t know or didn’t say that both were in the sabotage cell.
Even though it looked hopeless, Dad and Egeskjold still held out. A fat Gestapo officer with puffy eyes grabbed a whip and sat down right in front of Egeskjold. Swinging the whip, he again urged them to tell the truth. “Would you like to smell the whip?” he asked and pulled the length of it under each of their noses.
“I can only say that the hits to our heads had nothing to do with us talking more,” says Egeskjold in his account. “Quite the opposite. We were so mad at these pigs.”
But it was obvious that Neilsen had already sold them out and they might as well avoid the beating.
Since Neilsen had not been active in the sabotage group, Dad knew he couldn’t have much information about that. But he had been in on many of Dad’s activities, so Dad admitted to being in the newspaper group. Egeskjold admitted to the sabotage cell, but said they had only just started and hadn’t done anything yet.
The friends were separated and sent to cramped, crowded, cold cells where they stayed until they were transferred to a jail back on Jutland, where they had been active.
SS officers said they would shoot him
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