Freddie Oversteegen, Dutch Resistance Fighter Who Killed Nazis Through Seduction, Dies At 92
Source: Washington Post
By Harrison Smith, 4 hrs. ago.
She was 14 when she joined the Dutch resistance, though with her long, dark hair in braids she looked at least two years younger. When she rode her bicycle down the streets of Haarlem in North Holland, firearms hidden in a basket, Nazi officials rarely stopped to question her. When she walked through the woods, serving as a lookout or seductively leading her SS target to a secluded place, there was little indication that she carried a handgun and was preparing an execution.
The Dutch resistance was widely believed to be a man’s effort in a man’s war. If women were involved, the thinking went, they were likely doing little more than handing out anti-German pamphlets or newspapers.
Yet Freddie Oversteegen and her sister Truus, two years her senior, were rare exceptions- a pair of teenage women who took up arms against Nazi occupiers and Dutch “traitors” on the outskirts of Amsterdam. With Hannie Schaft, a onetime law student with fiery red hair, they sabotaged bridges and rail lines with dynamite, shot Nazis while riding their bikes, and donned disguises to smuggle Jewish children across the country and sometimes out of concentration camps.
In perhaps their most daring act, they seduced their targets in taverns or bars, asked if they wanted to “go for a stroll” in the forest-and “liquidated” them, as Ms. Oversteegen put it, with a pull of the trigger. “We had to do it,” she told one interviewer. “It was a necessary evil, killing those who betrayed the good people.” When asked how many people she had killed or helped kill, she demurred: “One should not ask a soldier any of that.”...More...
Read more: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/freddie-oversteegen-dutch-resistance-fighter-who-killed-nazis-through-seduction-dies-at-92/ar-BBNqAy8
Freddie Oversteegen, last remaining member of the Netherlands’ most famous female resistance cell, died Sept. 5, a day before her 93rd birthday. The National Hannie Schaft Fnd. was founded by Ms. Oversteegen’s sister, Truus to promote the legacy of Schaft who was captured & executed by Nazis just before the end of WWII. Schaft became a national icon whose story was taught to schoolchildren & memorialized in a movie, “The Girl With the Red Hair” (1981).
For Truus Oversteegen, being in the resistance was a source of pride & of pain, a 5-yr. experience that she never regretted. As girls Truus & Freddie made dolls for children suffering in Spain's Civil War (1936-1939). In WWII, the family sheltered German & Dutch refugees, including a Jewish couple, and a mother & son who lived in their attic. When German forces invaded in May 1940, the refugees were all deported & murdered.
The sisters began their resistance careers by distributing pamphlets & hanging anti-Nazi posters. Then they joined the underground Haarlem resistance & learned to sabotage bridges & railways, and shoot Nazis.
Photo Top, Freddie Oversteegen, Below, Freddie and Truus Oversteegen.
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The uncle of a good friend of mine was in the German resistance. He was eventually caught and killed by the Nazis.
and patriotism these fighters possessed. My father was in combat in the 7th Army, Rhineland Campaign and the end liberation of Dachau. We must never forget.
Menger, Truus (Oversteegen)
From as early as 1933, when Truus Oversteegen of Haarlem, North Holland, was only a young girl, her parents, who were simple laborers, regularly offered shelter to German Jews. By 1941, Truus was involved in distributing pamphlets and ration cards and also went around persuading people to strike. From 1943, Truus worked with Hannie Schaft* for a group led by Mr. N.J.G. Sikkel, who later became State Attorney. Riding on her bicycle and shooting at the enemy, Truus killed more Germans than she later wished to remember. Through Hannie, Truus became acquainted with a group that transported Jewish children to hiding places. One of the children Truus helped was four-year-old Roosje Dingeman. Truus, dressed in the uniform of a Red Cross nurse, escorted Roosje from Haarlem to Dordrecht, South Holland. In 1944, a Jewish child was riding pillion with Truus. They were just passing German soldiers when a British airplane flew overhead and opened fire on them. When Truus turned around, she saw that the child had been killed, but she had to continue. Steering the bicycle with one hand and holding the dead child in the other, she continued peddling until she arrived at a farm where she buried the child. On another occasion, Truus dressed up in the uniform of a German woman soldier, entered a concentration camp with false papers and took out a seven-year-old Jewish boy. When she passed the guard, she lifted her arm and said “Heil Hitler.” The boy kept quiet and to maintain the charade Truus slapped the child and ordered him to say “Heil Hitler” too. The boy saluted and was saved. By the end of the war, the Germans were offering 50,000 guilders for her capture, but she managed to stay out of their hands, having a total of 53 addresses across the Netherlands where she could safely go into hiding at any time. After the liberation, Truus had a nervous breakdown, caused partly by the fact that Hannie had been arrested and shot shortly before the liberation, and in part by the suffering of Jewish children that she had witnessed. She married Mr. Menger, a Resistance worker, and they had four children. Truus became a professional artist and painted children’s faces for many years, images from the dreams that haunted her. Truus was offered decorations by Eisenhower, underground movements in Western Europe, and partisan organizations in the east. She turned them all down.
On May 10, 1967, Yad Vashem recognized Truus Menger-Oversteegen as Righteous Among the Nations.
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Last edited Mon Sep 17, 2018, 02:27 PM - Edit history (1)
Wiki, Hannie Schaft (Sept. 16, 1920- April 17, 1945) (Final)..She was eventually arrested at a military checkpoint in Haarlem on 21 March 1945, while distributing the illegal communist newspaper de Waarheid, which was a cover story. She was transporting secret documentation for the Resistance. She worked closely with Anna A.C. Wijnhoff. After much interrogation, torture, and solitary confinement, Schaft was identified by the roots of her red hair by her former colleague Anna Wijnhoff.
Schaft was assassinated by Dutch Nazi officials on April 17, 1945. Although at the end of the war there was an agreement between the occupier and the Binnenlandse Strijdkrachten (nl) to stop executions, she was shot dead three weeks before the end of the war in the dunes of Bloemendaal. Two men took her there and one shot her at close range, only wounding her. She supposedly said to her executioners: "I shoot better than you", after which the other man delivered the final shot. On November 27, 1945, Schaft was reburied in a state funeral. Queen Whilhelmina called Schaft "the symbol of the Resistance."
Legacy, After the war, in these dunes the remains of 422 members of the resistance were found, 421 men and one woman, Hannie Schaft. She was reburied at the honorary cemetery Erebegraafplaats Bloemendaal in the dunes in Overveen in the presence of Princess Juliana and her husband Prince Bernard. Later, as queen, Juliana unveiled a bronze commemorative statue in the Kenau Park in nearby Haarlem, her birthplace. Hannie Schaft also received the 'Wilhelmina resistance cross' and a US decoration. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannie_Schaft
Netherland Dunes of Bloemendaal. After the war, the remains of 421 men & one woman, Hannie Schaft, members of the Dutch Resistance were found here. Schaft was reburied at the honorary cemetery in the dunes in Overveer in Nov. 1945.
Rest in peace, Freddie Oversteegen!
