6. Life in the Resistance Was Full of Tragedy
Hannie Schaft also learned how to speak German fluently, got involved with German officials and soldiers, seduced information out of them, and passed it on to the resistance. Her conscientiousness, however, prevented her from unquestioning obedience and the acceptance of all tasks given her by the resistance. Among the assignments she turned down was the kidnapping of a Nazi official’s children. If things went wrong, the children would have had to be ended to keep them from identifying the resistance members with whom they had come in contact. The execution of children was a step too far for Hannie.
Life as armed partisans was a difficult row to hoe for resistance fighters, full of dangers and marked by tragedy as often as success. Early on, Truus Oversteegen, who had undertaken numerous missions to help Jews escape the Nazis’ clutches, was present at a failed rescue mission of Jewish children. It ended with the fugitives caught in searchlights in an open field, where most were mown down with machineguns. By the time the war was over, many of her resistance comrades had been arrested and executed.
