Film-makers like Quentin Tarantino like to make movies about the heroic soldiers who killed Nazis during World War II, but my favorite Nazi fighter is probably Freddie Oversteegen, who died last year just short of her 93 birthday. She was born near Amsterdam in 1925 and joined the Dutch resistance when she was just 14, along with her older sister Truus and a family friend, Hannie Schaft.
Together they blew up bridges and railway tracks with dynamite, smuggled Jewish children out of concentration camps and executed as many Nazis as they could, using guns hidden in the basket of their bikes. The girls used to approach Nazi soldiers in bars and then invite them to go for a walk in the nearby forest, where — as Freddie put it — they would be “liquidated.” She later called it “a necessary evil.” Her sister died in 2016, and their friend Hannie was killed during the war.
