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One evening in Haarlem, Netherlands, Truus, a beautiful Dutch teenager,
walked into a restaurant filled with SS officers while her sister Freddie waited outside.
Once inside, the young woman approached the highest-ranking officer and began flirting
with him. As they became familiar, she coyly suggested they go into the woods for more privacy.
Unbeknownst to the officer, he had just walked into a trap, as the two girls weren't ordinary;
they were the Oversteegen sisters,
teenage Nazi hunters who had been training for missions like these from an early age.
When the Nazis began their expansion across the continent, menacing the livelihoods and the very
lives of the European peoples, they brought about the most fatal war in world history.
But they also sparked the most noble and heroic sentiments and actions
of the likeliest heroes: ordinary people who rose to the circumstances.
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The Oversteegens
Truus and Freddie Oversteegen were born in 1923 and 1925, respectively, and grew up in an
outspoken political household. Their parents, Jacob and Trijntje, considered themselves
communists and instilled a sense of justice into their two children from the very beginning.
Even after their parents divorced, Trijntje continued to teach her daughters the importance
of helping others in times of need, and during the Spanish Civil War in 1936,
Truus and Freddie sewed dolls for the children affected by the conflict.
When Europe was on the brink of an upcoming Second World War,
the Oversteegens hid Jewish refugees fleeing from Germany and Amsterdam in their small home,
forcing the girls to share a single mattress.
It was no surprise then that when the Germans invaded the Netherlands in the spring of 1940,
the girls -14 and 16 at the time- joined their mother in their hometown’s anti-Nazi resistance.
Like many sisters close in age, Truus and Freddie did not always get along. Truus, the older of the
two, was described as assertive, efficient, and dictatorial, a natural-born leader with a heart of
gold. She loved to boss her younger sister around and didn't care about fashion or men her age.
Freddie, on the other hand, was extroverted, independent, and very likable.
Nevertheless, the sisters put their differences aside to work together against the Nazis. As the
Germans continued to occupy the Netherlands, the sisters helped distribute the Trouw, an illegal,
daily newspaper reporting on the brutal Nazi transgressions happening around Europe.
One of the sisters would act as a lookout while the other would
stuff the pamphlets into the bags of strangers walking around the city.
They sometimes even dared to paste the documents over Nazi announcements downtown.
In 1941, when the Germans invaded the Soviet Union, Truus and Freddie placed a large banner
over a government announcement as a tribute to the brave Russian people. This bold sign became
famous around Haarlem, and the sisters were proud of their sneaky joint labor.
Their acts of defiance weren't just subversive, they were also highly dangerous.
If Nazi or Dutch police had caught them, they would have faced the worst of consequences.
A Serious Proposition
Not long after their Russia endeavor, one of the top commanders of the Haarlem Resistance
Group showed up at the Oversteegen home with a proposition for the sisters.
Commander Frans van der Wiel was putting together a special resistance group in Haarlem,
and he and his fellow teammates had taken notice of Truus and Freddie's intrepid activism.
Still, this new organization would perform even more subversive, violent, and dangerous acts
than just handing out illegal literature. If they joined, they would need to take weaponry training.
As Van der Wiel continued talking, the girls realized why they were particularly valuable
to the Dutch cause: as young women, they would be underestimated by the Nazi police,
and the sisters would be able to attack without raising any sort of suspicion.
If they joined, the sisters could not breathe a word about their actions to
anyone, not even their mother. The conversation then turned more serious when Van der Wiel asked
them a single question: [QUOTE] "Do you think you could shoot someone?"
At only 14 and 16, the sisters were hesitant about answering.
Freddie was the first to respond, and she said yes. Meanwhile, Truus was worried about attacking
Germans that weren’t Nazis. When Van der Wiel assured her that they would make sure that any
executions would only be against the Gestapo or blatant traitors, she seemed to oblige.
After all, the streets were filled with Nazi soldiers, and they were
running around on their motorcycles hunting for rule-breakers. These were hardly ordinary times.
As Truus and Freddie walked the commander to the door,
he whispered that he needed an answer in two days.
He also added a crucial element of the resistance: once they were in, there would be no turning back.
The young women eventually agreed.
The Haarlem Resistance
For a time, Truus and Freddie were the only two women among the seven
members of the rebellion team known as the Haarlem Council of Resistance.
Soon after joining, the sisters went through a crash course on sabotage and weaponry, learning
how to rig railways and bridges with dynamite to cut off travel paths, how to correctly fire
a weapon, and how to roam the streets undetected through an area filled with Nazi soldiers.
Their appearance would prove an invaluable weapon, as both Truus and Freddie looked
younger than they were, and Freddie seemed as young as 12 when she styled her hair in braids.
The Nazis didn’t notice the two sisters when they rode their bicycles around Haarlem.
Thus, they were used as secret couriers and transported important paperwork and weapons.
From 1941 to 1943, the duo managed to burn down a Nazi warehouse,
work as volunteers in a hospital, escort children and refugees to secure hiding spots,
and procure false identifications for people who needed them.
Still, their biggest challenge was yet to come.
Teenage Nazi Hunters
During one of their first missions, Truus entered a restaurant with her hair and makeup done
and casually struck a conversation with a high-ranking Schutzstaffel officer. After flirting
with him all night, she suggested they go into the woods for more privacy. Once the duo was isolated,
they bumped into a man who then shot him, and they then placed the body into a pre-dug hole.
The Oversteegen sisters would eventually graduate to shooting their own targets.
Their favorite technique was riding a single bicycle together,
with Truus pedaling while young Freddie attacked from the back. They would also
follow SS officers home and ambush them when their guard was down once inside their homes.
Although they knew that this work was necessary, it was still difficult to carry it through.
In a later interview, Freddie admitted that sometimes she would shoot a Nazi
and then feel a strong impulsive need to help him.
The only mission the sisters ever refused to carry out was a plot to kidnap the children of
senior Nazi officer Arthur Seuss-Inquart. They did not want to harm actual children in any way.
The Girl With The Red Hair
In 1943, another woman joined them in the Haarlem Council of Resistance.
Her name was Jannetje Johanna "Hannie" Schaft, a 22-year old law student who
dropped out of university when she refused to pledge loyalty to Germany.
Soon, the three girls became best friends, and for the next two years,
the trio performed daring missions together in the name of freedom,
working as a tightly coordinated unit for sabotage missions.
Although at first the group went unnoticed by the Nazis,
by 1945 Hannie had become a target due to her very recognizable long and red hair.
On April 17, a group of Nazi soldiers apprehended her at a checkpoint when a guard noticed the red
roots of her hair, which she had dyed dark to avoid detection. According to lore, when
her attacker failed to hit her on his first shot, her last words were: [QUOTE] "I'm a better shot.”
Later Life
The war ended only three weeks after Hannie lost her life, and although they were now
freed from the Nazis, the sisters were devastated over the loss of their friend.
Despite the heartbreak, Truus and Freddie tried to reincorporate
into civilian life while still grappling from trauma and guilt over their actions.
In a later interview, Truus admitted that they never enjoyed their operations: (QUOTE)
"We did not feel it suited us. It never suits anybody, unless they are real criminals."
In November of 1945, Truus married Pier Menger.
The couple had four children, the oldest of whom was named Hannie. She was a regular guest
speaker at universities, where she talked about war, antisemitism, tolerance, and acceptance.
She then went on to publish a book about her experiences during the Dutch occupation in 1982.
Freddie also married and had children, but she threw herself into her artwork
and sculpted several memorials in the name of their best friend.
Then, in 1996, both sisters opened the National Hannie Schaft Foundation.
Despite their outstanding bravery, the Dutch government overlooked the sisters for years,
as Freddie once belonged to a Communist youth group. However,
Prime Minister Mark Rutte finally acknowledged the duo's courageous
actions in 2014 and presented them with the Mobilisation War Cross.
It is unknown exactly how many Nazis the girls were able to attack,
as both refused to discuss the matter later in life. Whenever she was asked about it,
Freddie would simply respond with: [QUOTE] "One should not ask a soldier any of that."
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