Når befrielsen kommer

Inspired by true events, this is a thorny and thought-provoking story about the unimaginable dilemmas that people must face in the wake of a war. One month before the end of the Nazi occupation of Denmark, a Danish family in charge of running the school is ordered to house 500 German refugees, mostly children and the elderly, of the 220,000 Germans who were in Denmark at the time of the Danish liberation. Germany's invasion of Denmark was part of Operation Weserübung carried out on April 9, 1940, when the Germans crossed the Danish border, violating its neutrality. To avoid a useless bloodshed, the Danish government surrendered almost immediately, and as a reward their autonomy was respected, indirectly (clandestinely) allowing the Jewish community to escape. The German campaign against Denmark was the shortest in military history. The German occupation became hostile when the Danes began sabotage in the summer of 1942. The occupation ended on May 5, 1945, when Germany surrendered to the Allied.

An astonishing, disturbing, intelligent perspective of the contradictions that the Danish people had to face after the end of the Second World War when liberation came to them and they stopped being a captive nation that, however, remains poisoned by hatred, wrath and the impotence of a world war that destroyed everything in its path. It is based on a true story that occurred in Ryslinge (Denmark), where a German civilian refugee camp was established in 1945. When German refugees arrived in Denmark just before the country's liberation in 1945, a school becomes an internment camp for refugees, and the directors' family is forced into an impossible situation. Here director Ander Walters provides a fair, agreeable and sensitive treatment of a difficult episode in Danish history. This is the remarkable true story of the kindness, pursuit of justice, philanthropy and help to refugees, victims and unfortunate people regardless of their ideologies or beliefs. An attractive and pleasant film with a lot of social content and good performances with special mention for Pilou Asbæk and Ulrich Tomsen, both of them are two good European actors with a long and prestigious career with international projection . Here we witness the struggle of a honest teacher who, avoiding all kinds of obstacles from both higher authorities and Danish resistance , as well as other colleagues who wish to live in peace without problems, nevertheless he manages to bring help to distressed and unfortunate German refugees. This is an intelligent and attractive film, endowed with extreme honesty, without an iota of falsehood and a lot of courage, being well directed by Anders Walter, in his film debut, he formerly made Shorts.

There's some historic remarks about Nazi invasion on Denmark: The German decision to invade Denmark arose from the need to invade Norway, which represented an excellent field from which to launch air attacks on the United Kingdom and secure Sweden's iron supply. Denmark occupied a strategic position, since planes could take off to Norway from its air bases. The greatest German interest was focused on taking control of the Aalborg airfields, in Jutland. This would extend the German air defense system and make British bombing raids on northern Germany more complex. However, it is known that until February 1940 the decision had not been made. Furthermore, parts of Danish territory had been German between 1864 and 1918, although Hitler had little interest in claiming them. However, the capture of a German ship by the English in Norwegian waters led Hitler to the conclusion that the United Kingdom would not respect the neutrality of Norway and decided to occupy it, and this in turn implied the necessary occupation of Denmark. The main consequence of this invasion was the Occupation of Denmark by Nazi Germany, which lasted until May 1945, when the last German troops garrisoned in the country surrendered to the British armies without offering significant resistance. There was an initial benevolent treatment by Germany of the Danish people during the first years of the military occupation, which can be explained based on the ideology of Nordic racial superiority that considered the Danes as a "trustworthy people" for the Reich. Due to this situation, Denmark was considered a "model protectorate" by Hitler, to the point that the Danish Parliament was allowed to continue functioning and King Christian X was kept free, although the Nazis imposed press censorship and controlled every aspect of political life and economic of the country. Starting in mid-1943, the German occupiers imposed repressive measures against the Danes due to the increase in clandestine resistance due to the progress of the war, which was already unfavorable to the Nazis by then; However, before that final period of occupation the Third Reich sought to convince the Danes and other Scandinavian nations to join them, rather than forcing them by force.

Inspired by true events that took place just before the end of WW2: therefore also its international title "Before it Ends". Starting as of April 1945, Denmark was faced with over a 250,000 german refugees, often young children or the elderly. This already fragile group was distrubuted over many danish villages, whereby they were left to their own, in many cases without any support from the german autorities or the German Wehrmacht. These people were therefore dependent on the willigness of the local danish people for help. And due to social pressure, this often gave problems... and this is exactly the subject of this movie.

This movie also clearly shows that the "Denmark Medical Association" is not truthful to its Hypocratic oath. This by not allowing its members (i.e. Medical doctors) to provide urgent care to people. This neither before the war ended and more stunningly, nor AFTER war end. The consequence was that many weak german refugees, including countless young children - even babies - were denied any treatment for life threatening diseases, resulting in many unnecessary deaths. And this whilst after the war ended, there were sufficient resources - medication and doctors - available to treat them. I personally think it is a huge disgrace that this was allowed to happen.

This movie also shows that some people, - which so-called "fight" for the resistance - are nothing but ordinary murderers. Blinded by revenge, hatered - or even outright evilness - some so-called resistance fighters used the end of the war to murder civilians which they either did not like and/or were of german descent.

A combination of great acting and excellent period-unique props, makes this movie an attractive watch. It very well depicts how Denmark may have looked like at the end of WW2.

I personally found this movie a very relevant movie to watch in case you have an interest in learning about WW2. Overall, I score this movie thereby at 7.4/10, resulting in an IMDB rating of 7 stars (almost 8 stars).

Before It Ends is an excellent film about a dark chapter in Denmark's history. It hits right where it hurts. This is well illustrated by Johannes' review, where he criticizes the film for being filled with bias and portraying the resistance movement as villains. Johannes apparently believes that everything is black and white in war. I completely disagree with that premise. Children are always innocent in war and always deserve good treatment. Unfortunately, this wasn't how the Danes saw it during World War II, when several German children died in Danish refugee camps because the Danes refused to help them. In fact, twice as many German children died in the refugee camps as Danish soldiers and civilians combined. This is a stain on Danish history, even though Denmark was occupied by Germany at the time.

Really convincing acting. You fully understand the dilemma. It is not black or white, but nuanced as in real life. Several times during the film I got tears in my eyes. A thing that is very rare. It is never boring and you physically feel the dilemma the main characters have in dealing with the moral issues of how to behave regarding the german refugees. The boy who plays a leading role is a genious actor, no less. The best danish film I have seen for years. So well composed and to the point. You understand the dilemma of the main characters, even the nazi doctor. Well done amd fantastic acting.

I have gone to watch quite a few WW2 movies, danish and otherwise. This film was an amazing story about a family caught between two strong moral viewpoints, testing their morals and ethics to the breaking point. The actors performed fantastically, even the child-actors did great, depicting how war can poison children with hate, evil and anger and yet also holds a story of redemption in several ways. Its such a deep story, the father, the son, the town, grownups and kids, the danes, the resistancefighters all captured in this movie. This was what I thought broke "De forbandede år" telling too many stories at once, but unlike "De forbandede år" I think this movie tells brings all these elements together in a focused and well directed way. It doesnt feel like 5 seperate movies forced into one, its feels like a unique part of history few consider or know about. How liberation wasnt as clean as we like to imagine. This is a HUGE recommendation from me to you telling you to watch it.