The 10th of May, 1940, World War 2, the Netherlands. Nazi Germany invades Holland
and the German Air Forces – the Luftwaffe – use paratroopers in the capture of tactical points and
to assist in the advance of ground troops across the country. The invasion is accompanied by heavy
aerial bombardment of Rotterdam and culminates on the 14th of May with the destruction of its entire
historic center. Because the Germans threaten to bomb the city of Utrecht in the same way,
the Dutch forces surrender one day later. Soon after the Nazis start to occupy the whole country
and pass new anti-Jewish laws which are designed to exclude Jewish people from society and restrict
their livelihood. The systematic deportations of Dutch Jews to death camps start in July
1942. However, because some Dutch citizens cannot bear to see what is happening to their country and
people, they join the resistance. Among them are two sisters who will become known for resisting
the German occupation and killing the Nazis. Their names are Truus and Freddie Oversteegen.
Truus Oversteegen was born on 29 August 1923 in Schoten, the Netherlands. Her younger sister
Freddie was born 2 years later on the 6th of September 1925 and the sisters lived with their
parents on a barge. The sisters grew up in a socially aware household and their mother, a
communist, had a strong intolerance for injustice. When their parents divorced, the girls stayed with
their mother and were raised in a small apartment in the city of Haarlem. The family lived in
poverty and slept on improvised mattresses stuffed with straw. They were taught compassion for those
less fortunate than themselves and the sisters would often share the same bed to spare the other
one for the Jewish refugees from Germany that were regularly housed in their small apartment.
World War 2 started on the 1st of September 1939. On the 10th of May 1940 Germany invaded
the Netherlands. Soon after a civil administration was installed under the SS auspices and Arthur
Seyss-Inquart was appointed Reich Commissar of the Netherlands. Among his first step were a series
of laws posing economic discriminations against the Jews. Soon after the occupation, a commander
of the Haarlem Council of Resistance knocked on the Oversteegen’s door and asked their mother if
the girls could join the underground fight against the Nazis and she agreed. At the time Truus was 16
years old and Freddie was only 14. In an interview in 2016 Freddie recalled the horrifying moments
following the German occupation saying: ‘“I remember how people were taken from their homes,
the Germans were banging on doors with the butts of their rifles – that made so much noise,
you'd hear it in the entire neighborhood. And they would always yell – it was very frightening.”
On the 22nd and 23rd of February 1941, German forces raided the Jewish Quarter in Amsterdam,
arresting and deporting more than 400 Jewish men to the Buchenwald and Mauthausen concentration
camps. The Dutch people’s reaction was unique among the Nazi-occupied Europe: they organized
the February Strike, a two-day general strike, which started on the 25th of February 1941.
German officials brutally suppressed the strike. This action was followed by a hardening of Nazi
policy. The German authorities as well as collaborating Dutch authorities and
civil services segregated Jews from the general Dutch population and incarcerated 15,000 of them
in German-administered forced-labor camps. The Germans then ordered the concentration of Jews
in Amsterdam and sent foreign and stateless Jews to the Westerbork transit camp in the northeast
part of the country. Some of the remaining provincial Jews were sent to the Vught camp.
The sign ‘Forbidden for Jews’ appeared on the doors and gates of cafes, swimming pools,
sports fields, museums, zoos, libraries, theatres, markets and many other public places.
Jews had to hand over their valuables, and their businesses were confiscated.
Regulations which forced Jews to wear a yellow Star of David on their clothing as
a means of identification were announced in the Netherlands on the 29th of April 1942.
Those caught without the badge after the 5th of May, when they came into effect, were arrested,
and detained for a six-week period to serve at Mauthausen. In the Netherlands
everyone knew that this was a death sentence. Deportations of Jews from the Netherlands began
in July 1942. The last train left Westerbork for Auschwitz on the 3rd of September 1944.
During these two years, the Germans and their Dutch collaborators deported some 107,000
Jews, mostly to Auschwitz and Sobibor, where they were murdered.
Only 5,200 survived. In addition, 25,000-30,000 Jews went into hiding, assisted by the Dutch
underground and two-thirds of those managed to survive. During the war, the Oversteegen
family hid a Jewish couple in their home. One of the biggest impacts on the Dutch
people during the occupation was caused by the German ‘Arbeitseinsatz’ or “labor deployment”,
which forced every man aged between 18 and 45 to work in German factories. As part of this program,
approximately 500,000 Dutchmen were transported by force to Germany. Life in the factories was hard,
and dangerous too, as the buildings were regularly bombed by the Allies. Those that
refused to go were forced into hiding. Freddie and her sister played a crucial
role in distributing anti-Nazi propaganda, spreading leaflets, and pasting warnings to
discourage Dutch men from working in Germany. Their efforts were aimed to disrupt the German
war machine and undermine the occupiers' control. Their messages read: ‘’Don’t go
to Germany’’ or ‘’For every Dutch man working in Germany, a German man will go to the front!’’.
The Oversteegen sisters were the only 2 women in the seven-person underground cell of the
Haarlem Council of Resistance. Freddie later recalled that at the beginning of her time
with the resistance she thought that they would be starting a kind of secret army. Very soon,
however, the girls were doing much more than just handing out distributing leaflets and
literature. They would be shown how to fire a weapon, the basics of sabotage or picking
up tricks on how to rig railways and bridges with dynamite so travel paths could be cut off.
This resistance’s counterintelligence, domestic sabotage and communications networks helped to
provide key support to Allied forces throughout the liberation of Holland.
Members of the resistance, if discovered, were immediately sentenced to death.
With her hair in braids, Freddie looked like 12-year-old schoolgirl and her innocent looks
made her invaluable as she could slip by Nazi controls unnoticed. Few soldiers took notice of
her as she rode a bicycle through occupied territory, secretly acting as a courier,
transporting paperwork and weapons for resistance movement. Together with her sister,
Freddie would burn down a Nazi warehouse and plant a communist flag at the headquarters of
the national Socialist Movement. They would escort small children, homosexuals and Jewish refugees
into hiding spots and arrange false documentation for them helping them escape concentration camps.
However, when it was necessary, the Overstreegen sisters would also kill.
Freddie was the first to shoot a Nazi and she did so while riding a bicycle. Truus soon began
killing Nazis as well and on one occasion she witnessed a horrifying scene where a Nazi grabbed
a baby and hit it against the wall. The father and sister of the baby, both crying hysterically,
had to watch as the Nazi was smacking the baby against the wall until the baby was dead.
When Truus was passing by and saw the horrific scene, she stopped,
pointed her gun in the direction of the Nazi and shot him dead without any regrets.
On a different occasion they were both riding a bicycle and while Truus was peddling Freddie
would shoot a Nazi traitor from the back. One notable aspect of Freddie's involvement
in the resistance was her work as a seductress. Being young and attractive, she would approach
German soldiers and collaborators under the pretext of a romantic encounter.
At night she would put on makeup and would find a target in a bar or restaurant and start flirting
with him. Then she would lure the target out asking him to go for a walk in the woods and
once they were alone, Freddie and her companion would bump into a man along the same path.
Unknown to the Nazi officer, the man would be a resistance member, who would shoot the Nazi dead
and leave him in a hole that had been dug earlier. The Overstreegens would target mostly Nazis
officers but also Dutch collaborators who gave the Nazis details of Jewish and dissident families.
They, however, refused to target the children of high-ranking Nazis. When they were asked by their
resistance commanders to kidnap the three children of Reich Commissioner Arthur Seyss-Inquart,
they refused and argued: ‘’ Resistance fighters do not kill children, we only fight
against real fascists, not against children.” In 1943, the Overstreegen girls were joined by the
then 22-year-old former law student named Hannie Schaft and the 3 women became inseparable. For the
next 2 years they would continue to be involved in acts of sabotage, distributing illegal newspapers,
and carrying out targeted assassinations of German soldiers and collaborators. As a law student,
Hannie used her knowledge and skills to aid the resistance. She would gather intelligence, forge
identity papers, and participate in clandestine operations to undermine the Nazi occupiers.
She caused so much damage and killed so many Nazis that her capture was considered a high priority,
ordered by Adolf Hitler himself. She was known as "the girl with the red hair” and her
determination and courage made her an iconic figure within the Dutch resistance movement.
Both Freddie and her sister Truus survived the war but unfortunately, Hannie Schaft was
captured by the German authorities in 1945, just weeks before the liberation of the Netherlands.
She was interrogated, tortured, and ultimately executed by firing squad on April 17, 1945.
Her sacrifice and bravery made her a symbol of Dutch resistance against Nazi oppression.
The Germans officially surrendered all their troops in the Netherlands on the
5th of May 1945, three days before the general capitulation of Germany.
After the war, Supreme Allied Commander Dwight
Eisenhower awarded Hannie a posthumous Medal of Freedom.
In November 1945 Truus married Piet Menger and the couple had four children,
the oldest of whom was named in remembrance of Hannie Schaft. Truus was a regular guest speaker
at universities and secondary schools about wars, antisemitism, tolerance and indifference.
On 10 May 1967, Yad Vashem recognized Truus Oversteegen as a Righteous Among the Nations,
Israel's highest honor for non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust.
In 2014, for their service during World War 2, both Truus and Freddie were awarded the
Mobilization War Cross by the Dutch prime minister. Truus passed away in 2016 at the
age of 92, and Freddie passed away two years later, at the same age.
To this day, their story, as well as others like theirs,
serves as a beacon of courage in the face of the unjust, and cruel forces in the world
There were many tears shed for Truus and Freddie Oversteegen.
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