Her parents were members of the Studenternes Efterretningstjeneste [da] and Røssell helped them, infiltrating German arms warehouses, carrying messages and transporting weapons and propaganda.
[2] After the April 1940 German invasion of Denmark her parents joined the Danish resistance movement as members of the student-based Studenternes Efterretningstjeneste [da].
[2] The family's apartment in Østerbro, Copenhagen and their cottage at Hjortekær in Hovedstaden were both used as hiding places for Jews escaping the Holocaust, to store weapons and to print anti-German propaganda.
[3] Røssell helped her parents from the age of six, learning how to shoot a Luger pistol, carrying messages and transporting weapons and propaganda in her doll's pram.
The Danish Gestapo chief Ib Birkedal Hansen was present on the raid and, when Røssell asked him when her father would return from arrest told her "If he has not come home within an hour, I have put him up against a wall and shot him".
With Erik she returned to the cottage and, using a key she had kept hidden from her aunt and uncle, accessed the structure to retrieve weapons, ammunition and uniforms missed by the Germans.
In a meeting after the ceremony she was presented with the blue, red and white armband of the Dutch resistance movement by a group of ex-fighters and also received a diploma marking her contributions.
Asta suffered from ill health in her final years, which were spent in Bernadottegården [da], a care home for elderly resistance fighters.
[2] In 2007, Røssell made her writing debut with Jeg brød et løfte (I Broke a Promise), a memoir of her childhood including the war.