Three Ordinary Girls by Tim Brady; Citadel Press; (c) 2021; 9780806-540382; 286 pages plus acknowledgments, available via Amazon.
By Donald H. Harrison
SAN DIEGO — The title of this book is an understatement if ever there were one. “Three Ordinary Girls” really should be retitled as “Three Extraordinary Girls.”
That is unless you think that hiding Jews from the Nazis, serving as bicycle-riding couriers for the Dutch underground, blowing up bridges, and assassinating Germans and high-ranking Dutch collaborators are run-of-the-mill activities for three college-aged women.
Although the story of sisters Truus and Freddie Oversteegen and their comrade-in-arms and eventual close friend Hannie Schaft reads like a novel, historian Tim Brady has written a carefully footnoted biography of the three Resistance figures who became such legends in Holland that intersecting streets in the city of Haarlem are named for them.
Of the three, the red-haired Schaft became the most celebrated — not because she was so much more daring that the two sisters but because, unlike them, she was captured and executed just a few days before the end of the war. Her body was secretly buried in an area of dunes, where hundreds of other Dutch enemies of the Nazi regime also were unceremoniously executed and buried. All their bodies were exhumed and reinterred in a heroes’ cemetery. Of all the victims, Schaft was the only female, and it was her body that was ceremoniously escorted to the cemetery in a procession that included members of Holland’s royal family. Schaft — better known to Hollanders by her nickname “Hannie”– came to symbolize the spirit of Dutch resistance.
Having also hidden Jews, the three young ladies also are also enrolled among the “Righteous of the Nations” at Yad Vashem.
For the Dutch populace, the story of the Oversteegen sisters and Hannie Schaft is a well-known tale, perhaps as well-known as the story of young Jewish diarist Anne Frank, who hid with her family in a secret annex in Amsterdam.
However, for many American readers, their stories will be new and quite thrilling. Author Tim Brady tells that story quite well.
*
Donald H. Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted via donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com