Freddie Oversteegen, Gritty Dutch Resistance Fighter, Dies at 92

Amazing life:

Freddie Oversteegen was only 14, petite with long braids, when she became an assassin and saboteur.

It was 1940, Germany had invaded the Netherlands, and she and her sister, Truus, who was two years older, had been recruited by the local Dutch resistance commander, in the city of Haarlem.

“Only later did he tell us what we’d actually have to do: Sabotage bridges and railway lines,” Truus Menger-Oversteegen recalled in a 2014 book, “Under Fire: Women and World War II.” “We told him we’d like to do that.”

Then the commander added, “ ‘And learn to shoot — to shoot Nazis,’ ” she said.

“I remember my sister saying, ‘Well, that’s something I’ve never done before!’ ”

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