Upon joining the Dutch Resistance, the teenaged Truus and Freddie Oversteegen started off small, by distributing leaflets and illegal newspapers and offering assistance to fugitives from the Nazis. However, things changed in the aftermath of the brutal Nazi crackdown in 1941, in retaliation for the massive Dutch workers’ strike to protest the deportation of Jews. German brutality further radicalized Truus and spurred her and her sister to join an armed partisan fighter cell that engaged in direct action against the Nazis. After receiving military training and learning how to operate a firearm, Truus’ early assignments included flirting with and seducing German soldiers, and leading them into the woods where they would be killed by her comrades. As Freddie described it decades later: “[Truus] was like: ‘Want to go for a stroll?’ And of course he wanted to. Then they ran into someone — which was made to seem a coincidence, but he was one of ours — and that friend said to Truus: ‘Girl, you know you’re not supposed to be here.’ They apologized, turned around, and walked away. And then shots were fired, so that man never knew what hit him. They had already dug the hole, but we weren’t allowed to be there for that part”. Before long, Truus was putting her weapons training to good use, and shooting Germans herself. Along with her sister, she also rigged up bridges and railroad tracks with explosives for destruction. The Oversteegen girls also helped smuggle Jewish children out of the country, carried out daring missions to help some of them escape from detention centers en route to extermination centers, and even sparing some from concentration camps. After the war, she married Piet Menger in November 1945 and had four children, the oldest of whom she named after Hannie Schaft. She was regularly a guest speaker at universities and secondary schools about wars, anti-Semitism, tolerance and indifference. Menger-Oversteegen's book about her experiences during the war, Not then, Not now, Not ever, was published in 1982. On May 10 1967, Yad Vashem recognized her as Righteous Among the Nations. At her 75th birthday in 1998, Menger was invested as an Officer of the Order of Orange-Nassau for her services. On 15 April 2014, Truus Menger-Oversteegen received the Mobilization War Cross with her sister from Prime Minister Mark Rutte. Sources · https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truus_Menger-Oversteegen · https://historycollection.co/the-gutsy-teenage-oversteegen-sisters-killed-nazis-during-wwii/2/ · https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/world-history/nazi-germany-dutch-resistance-freddie-truus-oversteegen-hannie-schaft-a9188306.html