Lesser-Known Women Who Were World War II Heroes
By December 6, 2022
Sophie Scholl
As the daughter of a progressive politician and outspoken critic of the Nazi regime, Sophie Scholl followed in her father's footsteps. In high school, she and her brother, Hans, created a secret club of anti-Nazi thinkers who called themselves White Rose. They created anti-Nazi pamphlets and began discreetly distributing them in summer 1942 around the nearby Ludwig Maximilian University.
While many at the school were interested in White Rose's goals, one of the maintenance workers on campus, a Nazi supporter named Jakkob Schmidt, alerted the Gestapo to the girl's activities. She was quickly arrested and assumed full responsibility, declaring that "somebody, after all, had to make a start. What we wrote and said is also believed by many others. They just don't dare express themselves as we did." She and the other identified members of White Rose were sentenced to death, and she and her brother were hanged on February 2, 1943, only hours after their conviction.
Freddie And Truss Oversteegen
This dynamic duo who were born in Schochten, Netherlands joined the Dutch resistance when they were only in their early teens. Their mother began offering refuge to fleeing Jews as early as 1939, but when the Nazis invaded their homeland, the teenagers decided to kick things up a notch and began secretly distributing anti-fascist flyers and posters across town. They played up their youth to avoid attention, styling their hair in braids and moving solely by foot or bike. It worked, so they leveled up again by blowing up rail lines with dynamite, hurting the Nazi war effort. They even began luring Nazi soldiers into the woods under romantic pretenses and then shooting them. For many decades, their bravery was kept out of the headlines, but in 2014, the Dutch government finally thanked them by granting them the War Mobilization Cross award.
