Josef ‘Tom’ Søndergaard (April 8, 1906 - 1946) was a hero of the Danish Resistance during WWII. He was head of the first Holger Danske resistance group, and, working directly with the British SOE, he acquired guns and explosives and began a series of sabotage actions.
The culmination of these was the blowing up of Forum, the concert hall and sports arena in Copenhagen which was being used to quarter German occupation soldiers. ‘Tom’ had actually been arrested on suspicion by Danish police shortly before the sabotage was to take place, and his Holger Danske comrades had to bust him out of jail (Vestre Fængsel) so he could lead them.
During the Forum sabotage action Søndergaard was wounded by shards of glass and brick fragments and he had to flee quickly to Sweden to recuperate. He never fully recovered and died from follow-on effects the year after the War ended. But for the duration of the War he was based out of Sweden as a weapons smuggler and ran ships between Gothenburg and multiple ports in Northern Jutland.
One of his missions was to bring his wife Eva over to Sweden. She was also active in the Resistance and had been arrested by the Gestapo and held for months in the internment camp at Horserød as a hostage, with the Nazis hoping to lure Søndergaard to attempt a risky rescue. Instead he waited until Eva was given leave to visit her ‘ailing parents’ in Frederikshavn, at which point he fetched her over to safety in Sweden. She and their two small kids survived ‘Tom’ - a brave hero of the Danish Resistance.
