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Truus Oversteegen was born on the 29th of August 1923 and passed away on the 18th of June 2016 at the age of 92

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Freddie Oversteegen was born on the 6th of September 1925 and died on the 5th of September 2018 just one day away from her 93rd birthday

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Hannie schaft was born on the 16th of September 1920 and died on the 17th of April 1945 at the hands of Nazis. It is said that her last words were "I shoot better" after only being wounded on the first shot

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On April 15th, 2014, Freddie and Truus Oversteegen were awarded the Mobilisation War Cross by Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte for their acts of resistance during World War 2.

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The Mobilisation War Cross was established on 11 August 1948 by royal decree of Queen Wilhelmina. Those eligible for the award include military personnel who served for at least six months between 6 April 1939 – 20 May 1940. However, the Cross can also be awarded to non-military personnel or people who did not serve a full six months, as long as the subject performed military tasks for the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

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The Oversteegens and Schaft also killed German soldiers, with Freddie being the first of the girls to kill a soldier by shooting him while riding her bicycle. They also lured soldiers to the woods under the pretense of a romantic overture and then killed them. Oversteegen would approach the soldiers in taverns and bars and ask them to "go for a stroll" in the forest.

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After the war, Truus married Piet Menger in November 1945 and had four children, the oldest of whom she named after Hannie Schaft. Also after the war, Truus established the National Hannie Schaft Foundation.

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During the war, the Oversteegen family hid a Jewish couple in their home. Freddie Oversteegen and her older sister Truus began handing out anti-Nazi pamphlets, which attracted the notice of Haarlem Council of Resistance commander Frans van der Wiel. With their mother's permission, the girls joined the Council of Resistance, which brought them into a coordinated effort. Freddie was fourteen years old at the time.

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Hannie Schaft's resistance work started with small acts. First, she would steal ID cards for Jewish residents including her friends

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The Resistance fighter who taunted “I shoot better!” at her Execution

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Their mother consented and the sisters’ agreed to join. “Only later did he tell us what we’d actually have to do: sabotage bridges and railway lines,” Truus told Jonker. “‘And learn to shoot, to shoot Nazis,’ he added. I remember my sister saying: ‘Well, that’s something I’ve never done before!’”
In at least one instance, Truus seduced an SS officer into the woods so that someone from the resistance could shoot him. As the commander who recruited them had said, Freddie and Truus learned to shoot Nazis too, and the sisters began to go on assassination missions by themselves. Later on, they focused on killing Dutch collaborators who arrested or endangered Jewish refugees and resistance members.

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Freddie Oversteegen: Girl Who Lured Nazis to Their Death

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Freddie her sister, and friend their Hannie Schaft worked to sabotage the Nazi military presence in the Netherlands. They used dynamite to disable bridges and railroad tracks.

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Freddie Oversteegen was only 14 when she joined the Dutch resistance during World War II, and only a couple of years older when she became one of its armed assassins. Together with her sister—and later, a young woman named Hannie Schaft—the trio lured, ambushed, and killed German Nazis and their Dutch collaborators. Freddie and her sister Truus, who was two years older, grew up in the city of Haarlem with a single, working-class mother. Their mother considered herself a communist and taught her daughters the importance of fighting injustice. When Europe was on the brink of war in 1939, she took Jewish refugees into their home.

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Freddie Oversteegen was only 14 when she joined the Dutch resistance during World War II, and only a couple of years older when she became one of its armed assassins. Together with her sister—and later, a young woman named Hannie Schaft—the trio lured, ambushed, and killed German Nazis and their Dutch collaborators. Freddie and her sister Truus, who was two years older, grew up in the city of Haarlem with a single, working-class mother. Their mother considered herself a communist and taught her daughters the importance of fighting injustice. When Europe was on the brink of war in 1939, she took Jewish refugees into their home.

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In May 1940, Nazis invaded the Netherlands, beginning an occupation that lasted until the end of the war. In response, the girls joined their mother in distributing anti-Nazi newspapers and pamphlets for the resistance.
“We also glued warnings across German posters in the street calling men to work in Germany,” Freddie later recalled in interviews she and her sister did with anthropologist Ellis Jonker, collected in the book Under Fire: Women and World War II. “And then we’d hurry off, on our bikes.”