CONTENT WARNIN: This post discusses WWII resistance activities, assassinations, and lifelong trauma. Purpose: historical education and honouring a hero only.
The 14-Year-Old Girl with Braids and a Gun in Her Bicycle Basket
Freddie Oversteegen (1925–2018) – The first of the legendary Dutch resistance trio to pull the trigger
In 1940, when the Nazis occupied the Netherlands, Freddie was just 14, living with her mother and older sister Truus on a poor canal barge in Haarlem.
One day in 1941, a resistance commander knocked on their door:
“We need girls no one will suspect.”
Freddie raised her hand first: “I can do it.”
The angel-faced teenager with blood on her hands
With her braids, innocent smile, and old bicycle, Freddie passed every German checkpoint without being searched.
Her missions:
Lure German officers and collaborators into the woods for a “walk” — then shoot them dead (she was the first in the group to kill)
Smuggle weapons and secret documents in her bicycle basket
Transport Jewish children to safety, hidden in the basket or riding behind her
Plant bombs on bridges and railway lines
Together with her sister Truus and their friend Hannie Schaft, they formed the legendary Dutch female resistance trio — hunted by the Germans with huge bounties.
The price of bravery
After the war, Freddie rarely spoke of what she had done.
She lived quietly, became an artist, married, had children — but was tormented by nightmares for the rest of her life.
She once said: “I shot people. Even if they were Nazis, I didn’t sleep for 70 years.”
While Truus and Hannie (executed in 1945) became national heroes, Freddie was largely forgotten.
In 2016, at age 90, she bitterly remarked:
“Women don’t count. They still don’t.”
Recognition that came almost too late
In 2014, at age 89, Freddie and Truus were finally awarded the Mobilization War Cross by the Dutch government.
Freddie Oversteegen passed away on 5 September 2018, just days before her 93rd birthday.
Her gravestone bears a simple inscription:
“Freddie Oversteegen – She lived for freedom.”
The little girl who once rode her bicycle through the woods with a pistol in her basket — who chose to fight instead of being a child — has finally been remembered by history.
Thank you, Freddie.
Thank you for teaching the world that:
Courage has no age limit — and women, even when forgotten, can change history.