Holocaust fighters by Madison Sandlin

Who was the Oversteegen sisters?

msandlin50 — 2025-03-19 15:23:15 UTC

Freddie Oversteegen was a teenager when WW ll broke out. She was a Dutch resistance who lived with her slightly older sister and single Mother. Her sister Truus was 2 years older than her and lived in the city. Throughout their lives their Mother has always taught them to fight for social injustices. When WW ll started and they heard about Jewish individuals being taken away and killed they started to take Jewish refugees into their home. When Nazis invaded the Netherlands the two sisters began to distribute anti-Nazi signs and pamphlets for the disturbed resistance. Doing this was very risky for the sisters and if anyone saw them passing these out they would of been killed. Which is why they tried to look as young as possible. They would wear braids and young clothes to try and fit in and have no one suspect them being in the resistance. In 1941 a commander visited the girls house and asked them to join the resistance. they all agreed to join and help but they had no idea what they were actually signing up for. For example of the instances they came across as Truus the older sister had to seduce and lead a SS officer into the woods and in plan one of the members of the resistance would shoot him. As time went on both sister we than tried to shoot Nazi officers and eventually they became assassinations. These girls were so involved with the resistance that they began to get recognition from the other members. Bas von Benda-Bechmann a former researcher for a war institution said “They were unusual, these girls,”. There were many woman that were in the resistance but not like these sisters and they were the very few woman that actually were trained to shoot officials.

A picture of Freddie Oversteegen

msandlin50 — 2025-03-19 15:42:08 UTC

A Picture of Truus Oversteegen

msandlin50 — 2025-03-19 15:43:39 UTC

Old picture of the sisters

msandlin50 — 2025-03-19 15:45:41 UTC

Movie about the sisters

msandlin50 — 2025-03-19 15:51:12 UTC

Book about the sisters

msandlin50 — 2025-03-19 15:53:59 UTC

Truus said

msandlin50 — 2025-03-19 15:55:33 UTC

“A war like this is a very raw experience. While I was biking, I saw Germans picking up innocent people from the streets, putting them against a wall and shooting them. I was forced to watch, which aroused such an enormous anger in me, such a disgust, a feeling of ‘dirty bastards.’ You can have any political conviction or be totally against war, but at that moment you are just a human being confronted with something very cruel. Shooting innocent people is murder. If you experience something like this, you’ll find it justified that when people commit treason, such as exchanging a four-year-old Jewish child for 35 guilders (Dutch currency at that time), you act against it." (Page 51)

Truus Oversteegen with a gun

msandlin50 — 2025-03-19 15:56:10 UTC

Freddie Oversteegen said in a interview

msandlin50 — 2025-03-19 15:57:21 UTC

“Yes, I've shot a gun myself and I've seen them fall,”

A book about the mother

msandlin50 — 2025-03-19 16:00:19 UTC

This was made because the sisters mother was executed by German Officials just weeks before the war ended

What were the Oversteegen sisters?

msandlin50 — 2025-03-20 14:13:22 UTC

The sisters, Freddie and Truus as well as their mother were apart of the anti-Nazi resistance. The sisters were trained to kill German officials while their mother helped hide Jewish people and spread the word about the resistance. in the end the sisters survived but the mother was executed before the war ended.

Trijn was their mother

msandlin50 — 2025-03-20 14:17:28 UTC

A symbol

msandlin50 — 2025-03-21 14:17:18 UTC

A symbol to represent the sisters would be woods because that is where they were such and lead German officials and than set up someone else for the perfect shot to kill them.

For more information click here

msandlin50 — 2025-03-26 11:19:05 UTC

Podcast link

msandlin50 — 2025-03-26 11:37:58 UTC