She Was Just 14 — And Her Bicycle Became a Silent Weapon Against the Nazis

War stories are often told through the lens of generals and great battles, of tanks rumbling across fields and men charging into gunfire. But sometimes, the most extraordinary acts of courage come from the least expected places—a park bench, a city street, a young girl on a bicycle. In Nazi-occupied Holland, one such story unfolded: the tale of Freddie Oversteegen, a soft-spoken teenager with braids and nerves of steel, who became one of the most effective resistance fighters in Europe.

Freddie’s journey from “innocent” courier to deadly assassin is not just a story of violence or vengeance. It is a story about choices—about what it means to fight evil without becoming it, about the cost of doing what is right, and about the burden that even the bravest heroes must carry. Alongside her sister Truus and their friend Hannie Schaft, Freddie Oversteegen became a legend, though for decades her country forgot her. This essay tells the story of how a 14-year-old girl’s “innocent” bicycle became a weapon of war, and how a handful of young women helped shatter German control in the Netherlands—one bullet, one ambush, one act of defiance at a time.

Childhood Under Occupation: The Roots of Resistance

Freddie Oversteegen was born in 1925 in the village of Schoten, just outside Haarlem in the Netherlands. Her childhood was anything but ordinary. Her family lived on a houseboat, scraping by with little money. Her father was often absent, and her mother, Trijntje, was a committed communist who believed in action over words. “When you see injustice, you don’t look away, you act,” she taught her daughters. Freddie and her older sister Truus absorbed this lesson deeply.

Their home was a haven for the desperate. Jewish refugees fleeing Germany, political fugitives running from the Nazis, and other strangers found shelter under their roof. The girls grew up sharing their beds with people whose names they sometimes never knew. They made dolls for children suffering in the Spanish Civil War and learned early that some things matter more than comfort or safety. Their mother insisted: “If you have to help somebody, you must make sacrifices for yourself.”

In 1940, when Freddie was fourteen and Truus sixteen, the Nazis invaded the Netherlands. The Dutch army surrendered after five days. German soldiers filled the streets, Nazi flags hung from buildings, and new rules and fears arrived overnight. Freddie remembered the terror of those days: “I remember how people were taken from their homes. The Germans were banging on doors with the butts of their rifles… It was very frightening.”

But the Oversteegen family did not hide. They fought back. Freddie and Truus joined their mother in distributing anti-Nazi pamphlets and illegal newspapers. At night, they would sneak through the streets, pasting over German propaganda posters with their own messages: “The Netherlands must be free,” and “Don’t go to Germany. For every Dutchman working in Germany, a German soldier goes to the front.” Then they would race away on their bicycles, hearts pounding, knowing that if caught, they would be shot.

Recruited by the Resistance

Their clandestine activities did not go unnoticed. In 1941, Franz van der Wiel, commander of the Haarlem Council of Resistance, came to their door. He had heard about the Oversteegens—the mother who hid refugees, the daughters who distributed illegal pamphlets. He wanted to recruit them.

He asked Trijntje, “Can your daughters join the resistance?” Freddie was just fourteen; Truus, sixteen. Their mother said yes. The girls said yes. But van der Wiel needed to be sure he could trust them. A few days later, he returned, dressed as a Gestapo officer. He burst through the door, waving a gun and screaming in German, demanding to know where a Jewish man was hiding. Freddie and Truus did not break. They refused to betray anyone, even as they believed their lives were in danger. Instead, they fought back, kicking and hitting the “officer.” When van der Wiel revealed his true identity, they had passed the test.

Now he told them what joining the resistance would really mean: “You’ll learn to sabotage bridges and railway lines,” he said. “And you’ll learn to shoot Nazis.” Truus looked at her little sister. Freddie grinned: “Well, that’s something I’ve never done before.” Their mother gave them one last piece of advice: “Always stay human.”

Learning to Kill: The Potato Shed School

The Oversteegen sisters were taken to an underground potato shed, where they learned to fire weapons, to aim, to stay calm under pressure, to kill. Their first mission wasn’t assassination but arson. Nazi warehouses needed to burn, but they were guarded by SS soldiers. The plan was simple: Freddie and Truus would approach the guards, flirt with them, distract them with smiles and laughter while the rest of the resistance slipped in behind to set the fires. The plan worked perfectly. The warehouses burned, and the guards never suspected the two teenage girls who had been chatting with them moments before.

Van der Wiel saw what the sisters were capable of. Their youth and innocence were weapons more powerful than any gun. They could go places men could not, get close to targets no one else could reach. It was time for them to learn what that really meant.

The First Kill

Freddie’s first victim was not a German soldier but a Dutch collaborator—a woman who had compiled a list of every Jew in the region, names and addresses she was about to hand to the Nazis. That list would have meant death for hundreds. The resistance gave Freddie the assignment.

She rode her bicycle to a public park where the woman would be. She found her target sitting on a bench, approached casually, just a girl with braided hair. “What’s your name?” she asked. The woman answered. Freddie confirmed she had the right person, pulled out her pistol, looked the woman in the eyes, and shot her dead. Then she got on her bicycle and rode away.

Later, Freddie would describe what it felt like: “The first thing you want to do when you shoot somebody is to pick them up.” The instinct to help, even after killing, never left her—no matter how many times she pulled the trigger.

Evolution of a Teenage Assassin

Freddie and Truus developed their own techniques. Sometimes they worked alone, sometimes together. Their methods evolved as they learned what worked.

The Forest: They would go to bars and taverns where German officers gathered. One sister would walk in alone, strike up a conversation with an officer, laugh at his jokes, touch his arm, lean in close. Then she’d ask, “Would you like to go for a stroll in the woods?” The officer always said yes. They’d walk into the forest together, deeper and deeper, away from roads and witnesses. There, hidden among the trees, the other sister would be waiting. One bullet to the head, and the officer would fall. They’d leave his body in a hole already dug, then walk away.

The Bicycle: Other times, speed was the weapon. Truus would pedal the bicycle while Freddie sat on the back, pistol ready. They’d identify their target walking down the street, ride past, and Freddie would fire. Then they’d keep riding—just two girls on a bicycle. Nothing unusual. “We always went by bike, never walked. That was too dangerous,” Truus explained later.

The Doorstep: Sometimes they’d follow a target home, learn his address and routine, then knock on his door. When he opened it, he’d see a young girl, innocent and harmless. By the time he realized the danger, it was too late.

The Arrival of Hannie Schaft

In 1943, a third member joined their cell: Hannie Schaft, known as “the girl with the red hair.” Hannie came from a middle-class family and was studying law at the University of Amsterdam, planning to become a human rights lawyer. When the Nazis demanded all students sign a loyalty pledge to Germany, Hannie refused and was expelled. She didn’t go home—she joined the resistance.

Hannie had distinctive features—bright red hair, green eyes, pale skin—the kind of face people remembered. It would eventually get her killed. But first, she would become one of the most feared resistance fighters in the Netherlands.

Van der Wiel tested Hannie as he had the Oversteegen sisters. He gave her a gun and sent her to assassinate a Nazi officer. She approached, raised the weapon, hands shaking, pulled the trigger—click. The gun was empty. It was a test. The “Nazi officer” revealed himself as van der Wiel. She had passed.

With Hannie, the cell became even more effective. Hannie was the intellectual and planner, Truus the leader and hard decision-maker, Freddie the scout who mapped every escape route. Together, they were unstoppable.

Resistance Beyond Killing

The three women did not just kill. They blew up railway lines to stop deportation trains carrying Jews to concentration camps. They smuggled Jewish children out of the country, sometimes walking them across borders in the middle of the night. They stole identity papers and forged documents to help refugees disappear. They gathered intelligence on German troop movements and passed it to Allied forces.

But killing was always part of their work. German soldiers, Nazi officers, Dutch collaborators—especially the latter, who betrayed their own people for money or power, turning in Jewish neighbors or working for the Gestapo. “We were dealing with cancerous tumors in society,” Truus explained. “You had to cut them out like a surgeon… There was no other solution.”

The Moral Line: Children and Humanity

One day, an order came from resistance leadership: kidnap the children of Arthur Seyss-Inquart, the Reich Commissioner of the Netherlands, to use as leverage for the release of resistance prisoners. If he refused, the plan was to kill the children.

Freddie, Truus, and Hannie refused the mission. “We are not Hitlerites,” Freddie said. “Resistance fighters don’t murder children.” They had killed many people and would kill more, but never children. That was the line between resistance and terrorism, between fighting evil and becoming it. They would not cross it.

But sometimes, the violence of war forced action. Truus once saw a Dutch SS soldier smash an infant against a wall, killing the child instantly. She stopped her bicycle, pulled out her pistol, and shot the soldier dead in the street. “It wasn’t an assignment. There were no orders. But I don’t regret it,” she said later. “Some things don’t need orders.”

The Price of Resistance

By 1944, Hannie Schaft was one of the most wanted people in the Netherlands. Her red hair had been spotted at too many scenes. The Nazis issued a bulletin: “Find the girl with the red hair.” Hannie dyed her hair black, wore glasses, changed her appearance, but she didn’t stop fighting.

In June 1944, Hannie and fellow resistance fighter Jan Bonekamp were assigned to kill a Dutch collaborator. Bonekamp shot the target, but was wounded in the chaos and captured. Dying in a hospital, he was tricked by a Nazi officer pretending to be a resistance member and gave up Hannie’s address. The Nazis raided her parents’ home, arrested them, and sent them to a concentration camp. Hannie went into hiding.

For months, Hannie stayed underground. But she couldn’t stay hidden forever. On March 21, 1945, just weeks before liberation, she was stopped at a Nazi checkpoint. They found illegal newspapers and a pistol, arrested her, and took her to prison in Amsterdam. For weeks, she was interrogated and tortured, but never gave up a single name.

Eventually, the Nazis noticed her hair—black on top, red at the roots. They had found “the girl with the red hair.” Hannie admitted to her assassinations but never betrayed the resistance. On April 17, 1945, 18 days before the Netherlands was liberated, she was executed in the dunes of Overveen. Her last words, after a bullet only grazed her head: “I shoot better than you.” She was 24 years old.

Aftermath: Silence and Recognition

After the war, Hannie Schaft was given a state funeral. Queen Wilhelmina called her “the symbol of the resistance.” But Freddie and Truus received nothing. The Dutch government ignored them for decades, partly because of their communist ties. During the Cold War, anyone with communist sympathies was sidelined and treated with suspicion—even those who had risked their lives to save their country.

Truus coped by becoming a sculptor, creating memorials to the resistance, writing a memoir, and speaking publicly. Freddie tried to build a normal life, marrying and having three children. But the past never let her go. She suffered from insomnia and nightmares. Every year on May 4th, Remembrance Day in the Netherlands, she woke up with dread.

When people asked how many people she had killed, Freddie always gave the same answer: “One should not ask a soldier any of that.” She never revealed the number. Neither did Truus. Some things you carry alone.

For almost 70 years, Freddie and Truus waited for recognition. Finally, in 2014, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte awarded them the Mobilization War Cross for their service during World War II. Freddie was 89; Truus, 91. It was the happiest day of Freddie’s life, her son said. Streets in Haarlem were named after them. Their story was told in books and documentaries. But for most of their lives, they lived in silence, unrecognized and unhonored.

Legacy: The Meaning of Humanity

Truus Oversteegen died in 2016 at age 92. Freddie died in 2018, one day before her 93rd birthday. Throughout her life, Freddie visited Hannie Schaft’s grave, leaving red roses for the friend who didn’t make it. When asked what advice she had for future generations, Truus said, “When you have to make a decision, it must be the right one, and you must always remain human.” Those were the words their mother gave them before they joined the resistance: “Always stay human.”

Freddie and Truus killed people. They shot men in forests and on street corners. They watched the life leave their enemies’ eyes. But they remained human. They cried after every kill. They refused to murder children. They carried the weight of what they’d done for the rest of their lives.

The Nazis killed millions—systematically, industrially, without remorse—and lost their humanity entirely. That’s the difference. During World War II, 90% of the Dutch population tried to live as normally as possible under Nazi occupation. Five percent collaborated. Five percent joined the resistance. Of that five percent, only a handful of women took up arms, and even fewer killed with their own hands. Freddie Oversteegen was one of them—a 14-year-old girl with braided pigtails and a pistol hidden in her bicycle basket.

She wasn’t a hero from a movie. There was no dramatic music, no slow-motion shots, no Hollywood ending. Just a teenage girl who decided that some things are worth killing for, and some things are worth dying for. Freddie, Truus, and Hannie are believed to have killed dozens of Nazis and Dutch collaborators—some estimates say more than 100. Freddie lived to be 92. She never apologized for any of it.

Conclusion

The story of Freddie Oversteegen is not just a story of war or violence. It is a story of moral clarity, of sacrifice, and of the enduring struggle to remain human in inhuman times. It is a reminder that courage can come from the most unexpected places—a girl with braids on a bicycle, a sister with a gun in her basket, a friend with red hair who would not give up her comrades even under torture.

Freddie’s life teaches us that resistance is not always about grand gestures. Sometimes, it is about small acts of defiance, about refusing to look away from injustice, about doing what is right even when it is dangerous, lonely, or thankless. It is about drawing a line that you will not cross, even when the world is burning around you.

When asked how many people she killed, Freddie Oversteegen refused to answer. “One should not ask a soldier any of that.” She carried the burden in silence, knowing that her actions had saved lives, even as they took others. Her story is a testament to the power of individual choice, to the possibility of remaining human while fighting monsters, and to the quiet heroism that can change the course of history.

Let us remember Freddie Oversteegen—not as a killer, but as a girl who chose to act when others stood by, who risked everything for strangers, and who, through all the darkness, held fast to her humanity. In the end, that is her greatest legacy.