Based on a true story: A Danish winemaker and his French wife join Denmark’s resistance against Germany’s WW2 military invasion and discover how far ordinary people will go to protect their family, friends, and each other.

SYNOPSIS:

1925 Berlin. German citizens continue to suffer from the aftermath of their country’s defeat in WW1. Paul, a young Dane eager to take on the world, graduates from distiller training in Berlin alongside his German friend Hans. Wanting to follow in his late father’s footsteps as a wine merchant, Paul travels to Paris to find work, meets Raydy, a vibrant French woman, and falls in love. Paul accepts a job to sell Bordeaux wines in South America; months later he returns to France a success, marries Raydy, and builds a peaceful life with their daughters, Mado and Vivi.

1939, Paul and Raydy listen to Hitler on BBC radio as German military power expands. They believe their country will remain neutral if a second war breaks out… until April 9th 1940, when Nazis invade Denmark. Wehrmacht soldiers patrol the streets. Ordinary life dissolves into quiet fear. As the occupation tightens, Paul witnesses growing brutality—culminating in the senseless killing of an unarmed student. The moment affects Paul deeply; he can no longer remain passive. Drawn into the resistance by his friend Skipper, Paul offers his home as a safe house and assists Jewish families escape to Sweden. Raydy, whose main priority is her family’s safety, voices her concern over Paul's involvement. Mado and Vivi are sent to a friend’s house in the country. Raydy, anxious and afraid, refuses to leave, tells Paul, “A single man living alone will be considered suspicious.” She becomes his partner in hiding fugitives, smuggling a radio-phone into Copenhagen, and lying to Gestapo.

By 1944, German crackdowns grow harsher. During nationwide strikes and violent street clashes, Paul is warned that his name is circulating. Holger, a resistance contact is caught with a gun, taken to Nazi headquarters; exposing Paul as a member. Arrested and interrogated by a Danish Nazi collaborator, Paul is beaten but refuses to give them the information they seek. At the same time, the rental cottage where Raydy and Paul have been staying is raided. Raydy, interrogated under threat of knife, says nothing despite her fear. Paul is transferred to Vestre Prison, then Frøslev internment camp, and finally the Neuengamme concentration camp, where he quickly learns that his confident and determined nature will be viewed as disobedience in camp which carries the threat of death. He struggles to withhold assistance to fellow campmates while witnessing starvation and senseless cruelty against them. When a Russian he befriends in the camp is on the verge of death, Paul’s sense of compassion and justice outweighs the personal cost to himself and he steps up to save him.

With Paul facing death, Raydy now understands that fighting for loved ones is worth the consequences. She approaches lawyer, Michael Reumert, who attempts to pay off a Nazi insider to help, but is refused; ‘The risk is too great.’ Reumert introduces a second plan with another insider who has successfully released prisoners from Neuengamme; a mysterious German official known as “Mr. X,” who agrees to try and secure Paul’s release with falsified documents. Unknown to Raydy, Mr. X is actually Hermansen, the Gestapo officer overseeing Paul’s case. With covert help from Hans, forged medical paperwork is secretly slipped under a stack of prisoner release forms and signed. Paul returns to Denmark, hears Gestapo has discovered the forged medical paperwork and plans to arrest him again. Narrowly escaping, he flees to Sweden. Through Hermansen, Hans informs Reumert of Raydy’s imminent arrest. She escapes as well. Paul joins Daneforce in Sweden, is present while Allied Officers review the air raid that destroys Shellhouse/Nazi headquarters; an attack that nearly kills Hans.

March 1946. Paul’s family arrives at the Baltimore Immigration Station. An error on Vivi’s paperwork results in her being denied entry. Determined to find a solution, Paul makes a frustrated plea to the Immigration Officer, whose expression remains professionally neutral. Raydy takes Paul’s hand, tells him; “We have lived through worse.” Paul relaxes, acknowledges the officer’s authority, asks him to reconsider; to give his family a second chance to live in peace. The immigration officer regards the Jacobsen family, sees their hope; his professional stance softens; he stamps Vivi’s passport with a firm hand. “Welcome to America.”