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In what universe is Hannie Schaft overlooked? Literally one of the most famous and well studied resistance members

by tekla 3y ago

sparky_z 3y ago
In the New York Times obituary desk universe. As the article introduction states, "Overlooked" is part of a regular series that goes back and writes obituaries for people who, for whatever reason, didn't get one at the time of their death.
jacquesm 3y ago
In NL I would expect 95% or so of the people older than 30 to know her name. Tante Riek and other female resistance fighters are pretty much unknown in comparison and given the lack of records will likely remain so. But the Dutch resistance had quite a few women in it, for one they could get around a bit easier without the fear of being arrested and deported to work in Germany, for another they were mostly what was left with the men and the older boys already hauled off to the Opel factories and other war production. By the end of the war the women in NL were running the country. Both my grandfathers had been in hiding for a part of the war, one of them got deported to Germany, the other made it through without being arrested and deported. Both had families with young kids, in fact my mom was born during the first years of the war and ended up severely malnourished as a result. Her slightly older brothers, just kids went to steal potatoes from the German warehouses and cargo boats in Hilversum harbor at night. Lots of harrowing stories from those days and if you had known my frail and elderly grandmothers you'd never know the kind of feats they pulled off. They hated the Germans to their death, nothing would ever change that. To stop the children from betraying their father they were told that dad (my granddad) was in Germany, so the kids believed that the area near Loosdrecht was Germany, when they went to visit there with food. When the English attacked that area my oldest uncle was just returning from such a delivery and he fell in with the German soldiers that were moving along what is today N201. The German troops were strafed by Spitfires and to the day he died that was one of my uncles most vivid memories, to hiding in a ditch together with the German soldiers, and both equally scared.

In what universe is Hannie Schaft overlooked? Literally one of the most famous and well studied resistance members

by tekla 3y ago

In what universe is Hannie Schaft overlooked? Literally one of the most famous and well studied resistance members

In the New York Times obituary desk universe. As the article introduction states, "Overlooked" is part of a regular series that goes back and writes obituaries for people who, for whatever reason, didn't get one at the time of their death.

jacquesm 3y ago

In NL I would expect 95% or so of the people older than 30 to know her name. Tante Riek and other female resistance fighters are pretty much unknown in comparison and given the lack of records will likely remain so. But the Dutch resistance had quite a few women in it, for one they could get around a bit easier without the fear of being arrested and deported to work in Germany, for another they were mostly what was left with the men and the older boys already hauled off to the Opel factories and other war production. By the end of the war the women in NL were running the country. Both my grandfathers had been in hiding for a part of the war, one of them got deported to Germany, the other made it through without being arrested and deported. Both had families with young kids, in fact my mom was born during the first years of the war and ended up severely malnourished as a result. Her slightly older brothers, just kids went to steal potatoes from the German warehouses and cargo boats in Hilversum harbor at night. Lots of harrowing stories from those days and if you had known my frail and elderly grandmothers you'd never know the kind of feats they pulled off. They hated the Germans to their death, nothing would ever change that. To stop the children from betraying their father they were told that dad (my granddad) was in Germany, so the kids believed that the area near Loosdrecht was Germany, when they went to visit there with food. When the English attacked that area my oldest uncle was just returning from such a delivery and he fell in with the German soldiers that were moving along what is today N201. The German troops were strafed by Spitfires and to the day he died that was one of my uncles most vivid memories, to hiding in a ditch together with the German soldiers, and both equally scared.