Dorthe Emilie Røssell
Dorthe Emilie Røssell, born on 12 January 1934, is a Danish author. As a child, she was part of the Danish resistance during World War II. Her parents, Georg and Asta Christiansen, were members of the resistance group Studenternes Efterretningstjeneste. Dorthe helped them by sneaking into German arms warehouses, carrying messages, and transporting weapons and propaganda.
From a young age she helped the family fight the occupiers. Their home in Østerbro, Copenhagen, and their cottage Hjortekær were used to hide Jews, store weapons, and print anti-German materials. The Gestapo raided the family twice; once by mistake, and once to arrest her father Georg.
On Christmas Eve 1944, Germans raided their cottage. The Danish Gestapo chief Ib Birkedal Hansen was there, and he told Dorthe, “If he has not come home within an hour, I have put him up against a wall and shot him.” Her parents were arrested. Dorthe was placed with relatives who traded with the Germans, and her father was tortured at the Shellhus in Copenhagen. Dorthe was brought there for interrogation. After seven hours she was released onto the streets.
Refusing to betray her family, she later found refuge with a resistance fighter named Karl Erik and helped to retrieve weapons from the cottage. Her mother attempted suicide during imprisonment, but both parents were released weeks later. The resistance wanted Dorthe and her mother to move to Sweden, but they chose to stay in case Georg would be released.
Georg survived imprisonment at Neuengamme concentration camp and returned after the war. After the war, Dorthe’s parents were ill; she cared for them as best she could. In spring 1948 she was confirmed and received special recognition for her wartime actions. Georg told details of the torture at the Hansen trial in May 1948, and Hansen was convicted and executed.
Dorthe later married and had one son. She and her husband were together for 44 years, and she helped care for him when he was ill. Her father died in 1989 and her mother in 1993, after which her mother spent her final years in a care home for elderly resistance fighters.
Although she kept silent about the war for many years, Dorthe published her memoir Jeg brød et løfte (I Broke a Promise) in 2007. The book drew on her memories of childhood and the war, and writing it helped her sleep better and lower her blood pressure. She has since written several other works and spoken to schoolchildren about her experiences.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 05:10 (CET).