The forest outside Harlem, Netherlands. March 17th, 1943. 10:23 at night. A 16year-old girl walks through the trees holding hands with a German SS officer. He’s maybe 30, uniform pressed, confident. He met her at a cafe 2 hours ago. She smiled at him, flirted, asked if he wanted to go somewhere quiet.

 He thinks he’s getting lucky tonight. A pretty Dutch girl. Young, innocent looking. She seems nervous. That makes it better. He likes when they’re nervous. They reach a clearing. The girl stops, turns to face him. She’s still smiling, but something in her eyes has changed. The nervousness is gone. What replaces it is colder, harder. The officer notices too late.

She’s pulling something from her coat. Not a pack of cigarettes. A pistol. He starts to reach for his own weapon. Too slow. She fires once. Point blank range. The officer drops dead before he hits the ground. The girl stands over his body. No emotion on her face. Just checks his pulse. Confirms the kill. Then she walks back through the forest like nothing happened.

 By midnight, she’s home in bed. Her mother thinks she was at a friend’s house studying. This is not the first Nazi she’s killed. It’s the eighth and she’s been doing this for 2 years. Her name is Truis Overstegen. She’s 16 years old and she’s one of the most effective resistance assassins in the Netherlands.

 Truce Manger Overstegen born August 16th, 1923, Harlem, Netherlands. She grows up poor. Her father leaves when she’s six. Abandons the family. Her mother Freddy raises truce and her younger sister Hy alone. Times are hard, the depression, no money, no opportunities. They survive on charity, on welfare, on stubbornness. But Freddy isn’t just poor.

 She’s political, communist, activist. She believes in justice, inequality, in fighting oppression. She teaches her daughters these values. By age 10, Truce is attending political meetings with her mother, listening to speeches about workers rights, about standing up to fascism. May 1940, Germany invades the Netherlands.

 The Dutch army resists for 5 days, then surrenders. The country is occupied. German soldiers everywhere. Nazi flags flying from government buildings. The occupation is brutal, immediate, efficient. Freddy overstegan watches her country fall. Watches Nazis march through Harlem. She makes a decision. She’s going to fight and she’s going to teach her daughters to fight.

Truce is 16 years old when the war starts. Hy is 14. Their mother sits them down, tells them what’s happening. The Nazis are evil. They’re killing people. Jews, communists, resistance fighters. Anyone who opposes them. Someone needs to fight back. She asks her daughters. Will you help me? It’s dangerous.

 You could be killed, but it’s necessary. Truce doesn’t hesitate. Says yes. Hie says yes. They’re teenagers. They should be worrying about school, about boys, about normal teenage things. Instead, they’re joining the resistance. Freddy makes contact with the Council of Resistance. The Rod Van Verzette, an underground network organizing opposition to the occupation.

 They need people, young people. People the Germans won’t suspect. The resistance commander looks at Truce and HY, two teenage girls. 116, 114. He’s skeptical. What can they do? They’re children. Freddy says children are invisible. The Germans don’t see them as threats. They can move through checkpoints, carry messages, transport weapons, do things adults can’t.

 The commander agrees to try them, gives them simple tasks, delivering messages, moving supplies. The sisters prove themselves. They’re smart, careful, brave. They don’t make mistakes. 6 months later, the commander gives them harder assignments. Sabotage. They blow up railway tracks, cut communication lines, steal weapons from German depots.

Truce is good at this. She’s fearless. Or maybe she just doesn’t understand the danger. At 16, death feels abstract, impossible. She takes risks that would terrify an adult. Hie is more cautious. She’s only 14. She understands less about what they’re doing, but she follows her sister, trusts her. They work as a team.

 January 1942, the resistance commander calls Truce and HY to a meeting. He has a new assignment. Different from anything they’ve done before. He asks them, “Can you kill someone?” Truce doesn’t understand the question at first. Kill someone like in war, like shooting enemy soldiers. The commander says, “Yes, exactly like that.

We need to eliminate collaborators. Dutch citizens working for the Germans, informants, Gestapo agents. They’re betraying us. Getting resistance members arrested, executed. We need to stop them. He pauses, looks at the two teenage girls, says, “This isn’t sabotage. This is assassination. This is murder under the law.

 If you’re caught, you’ll be executed. No trial, no mercy, just a bullet.” He asks again, “Can you do this?” Truce thinks about it. She’s 16 years old. She’s never killed anyone. Never held a gun with the intention of shooting another human being. But she thinks about the Nazis, about what they’re doing, about Jews being rounded up, about resistance fighters being tortured, about her country under occupation.

 She says, “Yes, I can do it.” Hie says, “Yes, too.” She’s 14. She doesn’t fully understand what she’s agreeing to, but she trusts her sister. The commander trains them how to shoot, how to approach a target, how to blend in, how to escape. The training is minimal. A few days, that’s all they have time for. Then he gives them their first target.

 A Dutch policeman working for the Germans. He’s arrested seven resistance members in the past month. All seven were executed. He’s a traitor. He needs to die. Truce and Hy stake out his routine. Learn his schedule. He walks home the same way every night through a park alone. That’s when they’ll hit him. March 3rd, 1942.

8:30 p.m. The policeman walks through the park. Truce and Hy are waiting, sitting on a bench. Just two teenage girls giggling, talking. He doesn’t even look at them. He walks past. True stands, follows him, catches up, calls out, “Excuse me, sir. Can you help me? I’m lost.” He turns, sees a 16-year-old girl, smiling, innocent looking.

 He starts to give directions. Truce pulls the pistol from her coat, fires twice, center mass. The policeman drops. Truce and Hy run through the park into the streets. Separate meet up later at a safe house. They’ve just committed their first assassination. They’re teenagers. They’ve just killed a man.

 Truce expects to feel something. Guilt. Horror. Remorse. She feels nothing. Just relief that it’s over, that she didn’t mess up, that she escaped. The resistance commander is impressed. The sisters prove they could do it. He gives them more targets, more collaborators, more traders. Truce and HY become the resistance’s primary assassination team.

Over the next three years, Truce kills at least 40, five people, maybe more. The exact number is disputed. Some targets she shoots. Others, she uses different methods. Poison, sabotage, making deaths look like accidents. Hy kills fewer, maybe 20. She’s younger, more hesitant, but she follows her sister, does what needs to be done.

 They develop a signature method, the honeypot. Truce would approach German soldiers or Dutch collaborators, flirt with them, ask if they wanted to go somewhere private. The men always said yes. Young girl, pretty eager. They thought they were getting lucky. They’d follow Truis to a secluded location. Forest, alley, empty building.

 That’s where Hannie would be waiting or Truce would pull her own weapon. The target would die. The sisters would disappear. It worked because the Germans underestimated them. Teenage girls, harmless, non-threatening. The men never saw them as danger until it was too late. One assassination stays with Truce forever.

 A German officer, SS, high ranking. The resistance wants him dead. Truce volunteers. She’s done this dozens of times. Should be routine. She meets him at a cafe. Flirts. He’s interested. Older man, 30some. She’s 16. The power dynamic is obvious. She uses it, plays the nave girl. Impressed by his uniform, his authority, he invites her to dinner.

She accepts, they eat, he drinks, talks about himself, his career, his victories, how many enemies of the rage he’s eliminated. He’s bragging, trying to impress her. Truce listens, smiles, laughs at his jokes. Inside, she’s calculating how to do this, when, where. She suggests they go for a walk. Fresh air. He agrees.

 They walk into the forest. That’s when she pulls the gun. The officer sees it, realizes what’s happening. He’s been set up by a 16-year-old girl. The look on his face. Shock, disbelief, humiliation. Truis shoots him twice. He drops. She confirms the kill. Then she walks away. But something about this one bothers her. The look in his eyes.

 The moment he realized she was just a girl and she’d fooled him completely. Years later, truce will say that moment haunted her. Not the killing. She never regretted killing Nazis. But the look, the realization in his eyes, she was 16. She’d manipulated him, seduced him, killed him, and he never saw it coming. The resistance calls Truce and Hannie, the girls with red hair.

 Both sisters are redheads. Distinctive should make them easy to identify. But the Germans never connect them to the assassinations. Never suspect two teenage girls. The Gustapo knows assassinations are happening. Dutch collaborators turning up dead. German soldiers disappearing. Bodies found in forests. They investigate, interrogate suspects, raid safe houses.

 They never come close to the Overstegan sisters because the Gestapo is looking for men, for soldiers, for trained assassins. They’re not looking for teenage girls who live with their mother in a working class neighborhood who look innocent, who smile sweetly at checkpoints. Truce and Hanny use this advantage ruthlessly.

 They carry weapons through checkpoints by hiding them under their coats. The German soldiers search men. They barely glance at girls too young to be threats. One time truce is stopped at a checkpoint carrying a pistol. The soldier asks what’s in her bag. She smiles, opens it. It’s full of flowers. Pretty innocent.

 The pistol is in her coat pocket. The soldier waves her through. She walks past knowing the man she’s about to kill is waiting three blocks away. She’s 16 years old. The soldier sees a girl with flowers. He has no idea. She’s one of the most effective assassins in the Dutch resistance. The resistance gives truce and hy assignments, too.

 Not just assassinations, they help hide Jewish families, smuggle them to safe houses, provide false documents, food supplies. They save lives while taking others. Truce doesn’t see a contradiction. The people she kills are Nazis or collaborators. The people she saves are innocents. It’s simple, clear, black and white. She’s 16.

 She hasn’t learned about moral ambiguity yet. One mission almost kills her. She’s transporting weapons, rifles hidden in a cart covered with vegetables. She’s pushing the cart through a checkpoint. German soldiers are searching everything today. More thorough than usual. They stop truce. Want to search the cart. She smiles. Acts nervous.

 Young girl scared of soldiers. The act works. They think she’s just a local girl selling vegetables. They barely search. Miss the rifles completely wave her through. Truce continues to the drop point, delivers the weapons. Later, she’ll learn the soldiers executed three people at that checkpoint, found weapons on them, shot them on the spot.

 She was one search away from being number four. She doesn’t stop, doesn’t slow down. The close calls make her more careful, not more scared. Fear is something she’ll discover after the war. During the war, she just acts. No time for fear. September 1944. The Allies are advancing. The Netherlands isn’t liberated yet, but it’s coming.

 The Germans know they’re losing. They get more brutal, more desperate. Mass arrests, public executions, reprisals. The resistance goes deeper underground. Truce and HY continue operating. More assassinations. More sabotage. They’re not stopping until the Germans are gone. May 5th, 1945. Germany surrenders.

 The Netherlands is liberated. The occupation is over. Truce is 21 years old. Hi is 19. They’ve been resistance fighters for 5 years. They’ve killed dozens of people, saved dozens more. The war is over. Now what? The Dutch government honors resistance fighters, medals, recognition, parades. Truce and HY are offered accommodations.

They refuse. Don’t want attention. Don’t want recognition. They just want to go home, be normal, forget the war. But forgetting is impossible. Truce has killed at least 45 people. She’s seen friends die, seen civilians executed, seen five years of occupation and brutality. That doesn’t just go away. She struggles. Can’t hold jobs.

 Can’t maintain relationships. The war changed her, made her hard, suspicious, always calculating threats. Always ready to fight. That’s not useful in peace time. She marries, has children, gets divorced, marries again, struggles with PTSD before people call it that. nightmares, flashbacks. Sees the faces of men she killed.

 Remembers the look in the SS officer’s eyes. The moment he realized for decades, truce doesn’t talk about the war. Doesn’t tell anyone what she did. Her children don’t know. Her friends don’t know. She’s just a woman living quietly in Harlem, working normal jobs, living a normal life. Except she’s not normal.

 She’s a woman who killed dozens of Nazis before she was 21. Who looked men in the eyes and pulled the trigger. [sighs] Who learned to kill as a teenager and carried that knowledge for the rest of her life. 1985. A journalist discovers Truce’s story. Researching the Dutch resistance. Finds references to the girls with red hair. Tracks down truce.

Asks for an interview. Truce refuses at first. She’s 62 years old. The war ended 40 years ago. She doesn’t want to talk about it. Doesn’t want to remember. The journalist persists. Says people should know what you did, what you sacrificed, how you fought. Truce finally agrees. One interview she tells her story.

 The assassinations, the sabotage, saving Jewish families, being 16 years old with a gun, killing her first target, the SS officer in the forest. The interview is published. Creates a sensation. People can’t believe it. Teenage girls assassinating Nazis. It sounds like fiction, but it’s real. Documented, verified by other resistance members.

Truce becomes famous reluctantly. She doesn’t want fame, but her story spreads. Books, documentaries, recognition from the Dutch government. Finally, 40 years late. 2014 truce over Stegen is 91 years old. The Dutch government gives her the mobilization war cross, one of the highest military honors for her resistance work for saving lives, for fighting when she was just a teenager.

 At the ceremony, Truce is asked, “Do you regret what you did killing those men?” She thinks for a long time, then says, “No, I don’t regret it. They were Nazis. They were killing innocent people. Someone had to stop them. It was us. We were just girls. But we did it anyway,” she’s asked. “Would you do it again if you had to?” Truce says, “Yes.

” Without hesitation, I’d do it all again because it was necessary. because it was right. Because someone had to fight. September 7th, 2016. Truce over Stegen dies. Age 92. She lived 47 years after killing her last Nazi. She raised children, had grandchildren, lived an ordinary life after doing extraordinary things.

 Her obituary runs in newspapers worldwide. The teenage girl who killed Nazis. The resistance fighter who started at 16. The woman who seduced SS officers and shot them in the forest. The story captures imaginations. Teenage girls fighting Nazis. It sounds impossible, but it happened. Truce and HY oversteion proved it happened.

 They weren’t trained soldiers. Weren’t spies. They were just sisters who decided to fight, who learned to kill, who did what needed to be done. Here’s what Truis overstein’s story teaches us. The Nazis occupied the Netherlands for 5 years. They had armies, Gustapo, informants, checkpoints. They controlled everything. They thought they were untouchable.

They were being killed by teenage girls, girls who looked innocent, who smiled sweetly, who flirted at cafes, who convinced men to follow them into forests, who pulled guns and fired without hesitation. The Germans never suspected because they underestimated. They saw teenage girls and thought harmless, thought non-threatening, thought victims.

 Tro and Hanny Oversteion weren’t victims. They were hunters. They killed at least 60. Five Nazis and collaborators combined. Maybe more. The exact number will never be known because they were that good. Because they never got caught. Truce was 16 when she started. 16, the age when most people are worried about school, about dating, about normal teenager problems.

 She was worried about which Nazi to kill next, how to approach him, where to do it, how to escape. She learned to kill before she learned to drive, learned to seduce before she had a real boyfriend, learned to live with blood on her hands before she learned to live with anything else. The SS officer in the forest never knew what hit him.

 Thought he was meeting a pretty girl. Thought he was going to have a good night. Instead, he walked into an execution carried out by a 16 year old who’d done this eight times before who’ do it 37 more times after. He realized too late. Saw the gun. Saw her face change. Saw the girl disappear and the killer appear. In that last second, he understood. He’d been fooled.

seduced, lured to his death. By a child, Truce pulled the trigger. The officer dropped. She walked away. By midnight, she was home in bed. Her mother asked how studying went. Truce said fine. Then she went to sleep because she was 16. And this was her life now. Killing Nazis, saving Jews, fighting a war, being a soldier while looking like a school girl.

 The Germans never caught her. never suspected her. Never connected the assassinations to the redhaired girl who smiled at checkpoints. Who carried flowers? Who looked too young to be dangerous. That was their fatal mistake. Age doesn’t determine danger. Neither does gender. Neither does appearance. What matters is will. The will to fight. The will to kill.

 The will to do what’s necessary. Truce over Stegen had that will at 16. Never lost it. kept it for 76 more years until the day she died. She was 16 years old. The SS officer she seduced realized too late she had a gun. That’s the last thing he ever realized because Truis pulled the trigger just like she’d done before.

 Just like she’d do again until the war was over and the Nazis were gone. 45 confirmed kills, maybe more. All before she was 21. All while looking like someone’s teenage daughter watching a banyan tree. All while the Germans searched for a dangerous assassin and never looked at the girl with red hair who was standing right in front of them.

 Truce over Stigen. The teenager who became a killer. The girl who hunted Nazis. The woman who fought a war and won. Then lived another 70 years carrying the weight of what she’d done. Never regretting it. Never backing down. never saying she was wrong because she wasn’t wrong. She was 16 and she was exactly what the resistance needed.

 A weapon the enemy never saw coming. A killer hiding behind a teenager’s smile. A hunter disguised as prey. The SS officer realized too late. They all did. By then it was over. Truce had already won, already escaped, already moved on to the next target, the next Nazi, the next kill. She was 16 years old and she was the most dangerous person in Harlem.