5. After the War
Truus put down her arms and went about settling down and raising a family after the war. She married Piet Menger in November, 1945, and the couple had four children. She named the oldest after her martyred comrade, Hannie Schaft. Truus made a name for herself as a respected artist and sculptress, and as a public speaker about war, antisemitism, and tolerance. In 1967, Israel’s official memorial to the Holocaust, Yad Vashem, designated her as one of the Righteous Among Nations – an honorific for non-Jews who risked their lives during the Holocaust to save Jews from the Nazis. In 1982, she wrote a memoir about her wartime experiences, Not Then, Not Now, Not Ever. Truus Menger-Oversteegen died on June 18th, 2016.
Her sister Freddie also put down her arms after the war, and beating swords into plowshares, settled down and raised a family. She married Jan Dekker, and the couple had three children. When her sister established the Hannie Schaft Foundation, Freddie served on its board. In recognition of their wartime exploits, the Oversteegen sisters were awarded their country’s Mobilisation War Cross in 2014. Freddie died on September 5th, 2018, one day shy of her ninety-third birthday.
