“Despite their ages, they fought, killed and even died as armed combatants in the struggle.”
By Sophie Poldermans
WOMEN AND MEN experienced the Second World War in vastly different ways.
Females were largely assigned the role of victims in the conflict, due to their historically vulnerable positions in their respective societies, not to mention their exposure to gender-based crime during conflict. Consider the widespread acts of sexual violence by Red Army soldiers against German women during the Soviet occupation or the enslavement by Japanese forces of females throughout Asia.
But women also fought during the Second World War. Females did battle as uniformed combatants in the Soviet air force and tank and sniper corps and also as partisans in Nazi-Occupied Europe’s patchwork of anti-Axis underground movements.
The Dutch resistance featured some of these women warriors too, at least three of whom were mere teenagers during the Nazi occupation. Yet despite their ages, they fought, killed and even died as armed combatants in the struggle.
Hannie Schaft and the sisters Truus and Freddie Oversteegen, ages 19, 16 and 14, were experimenting with makeup and giggling about boys when Nazi Germany invaded and occupied the Netherlands in 1940. Almost immediately, these young women were forced to make a choice no child should face: survive or resist?
It’s estimated that as much as 90 per cent of the Dutch population tried to continue to live their lives as normal as possible under Nazi occupation. A smaller minority even collaborated with the enemy. Only a tiny fraction of citizens engaged in violent resistance. And the majority of those were men.
Hannie, Truus and Freddie were among a small number of women who chose to fight back, “if necessary, with weapons,” As Hannie had pointed out.
They began as spies. Their missions involved the gathering of vital intelligence for the resistance. Later, they helped provide Jewish children with safe houses and stole identification papers for the young fugitives.
As their participation in the underground continued, they began violently resisting the occupiers. Some of the operations they took part in involved attacking and bombing railways and other vital infrastructure.
Later missions saw them even closer to the action; the three volunteered to weaponize their own sexuality.
Disguising themselves as “Moffen girls” or “Kraut girls” – women in romantic relationships with German soldiers – the teens seduced and then murdered a number of high-ranking Nazi officers.
The trio frequented bars, where they’d entice the enemy using their feminine charms only to lure their unsuspecting targets to the woods with the promise of a sexual tryst.
How many enemy officers did the sisters dispatch? They refused to say. In my book Seducing and Killing Nazis, the Oversteegen sisters explained that precise numbers don’t matter.
“I was a soldier,” Freddie said. “You shouldn’t ask a soldier how many people he shot. I was also a soldier, a little one, a child soldier, but I was a soldier.”
The girls were different from each other. There was the clever auburn-haired Hannie, the down-to-earth tomboy and natural leader Truus, and the feminine and fierce Freddie. Yet they all shared the same ideal of making a more just world; each was driven to defeat the German occupation. They did what they did “because it had to be done,” they’d later recall. They put their lives on the line, went to extraordinary lengths, displayed exceptional bravery.
Hannie Schaft was executed by the Nazis only three weeks before the end of the war. She would become an icon of female Dutch resistance during the Second World War .
The Oversteegen sisters survived the occupation, but were forever haunted by the demons of their past. Truus became a famous public speaker, sculptor and painter. She died in June 2016 at the age of 92.
Freddie lived a more secluded life, focusing on her family. It was only after her death a day before her 93rd birthday in September 2018 that she received the recognition for her contribution.
Sophie Poldermans is the author of Seducing and Killing Nazis. Hannie, Truus and Freddie: Dutch Resistance Heroines of WWII (August 2019). She is the founder of “Sophie’s Women of War,” is a Dutch women’s rights advocate, author, public speaker, lecturer and consultant on women and war. She personally knew Truus and Freddie Oversteegen for 20 years and worked closely with them for over a decade as a board member of the National Hannie Schaft Foundation. Please check out https://sophieswomenofwar.com or https://seducingandkillingnazis.com and follow on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter or Goodreads. Book available at https://seducingandkillingnazis.com and Amazon
