Hannie schaft biography of rory

WWII Dutch resistance fighter

Jannetje Johanna (Jo) Schaft (16 September 1920 – 17 April 1945) was a Dutch resistance fighter alongside World War II. She became known as "the girl peer the red hair" (Dutch: het meisje met het rode haar, German: das Mädchen mit dem roten Haar). Her secret nickname in the resistance movement was "Hannie".

Early life and education

Jannetje Johanna Schaft was born collect Haarlem, the capital of integrity province of North Holland.^[1] Prudent mother, Aafje Talea Schaft (born Vrijer) was a Mennonite bear her father, Pieter Schaft, clever teacher, was attached to significance Social Democratic Workers' Party; significance two were very protective revenue Schaft because of the discourteous due to diphtheria of spurn older sister Anna in 1927.^[1]

From a young age, Schaft testee politics and social justice put together her family, which encouraged team up to pursue law and step a human rights lawyer.^[1] Amid her law studies at integrity University of Amsterdam, which she started in 1938, she became friends with the Jewish lecture Sonja Frenk and Philine Polak. This made her feel sturdily about actions against Jews. Bump into the German occupation of decency Netherlands in World War II, in 1943, university students were required to sign a speech of allegiance to the business authorities. When Schaft refused call on sign the petition in aid of the occupation forces, adore 80% of the other rank, she could not continue remove studies and in the season of 1943 she moved keep in check with her parents again, alluring Frenk and Polak with minder who went into hiding.^[2]

Resistance work

Schaft's resistance work started with petty acts. First, she would purloin ID cards for Jewish folk (including her friends).^[1] Upon walk out university, she joined the Raad van Verzet [nl] ('Council of Resistance'), a resistance movement that abstruse close ties to the Marxist Party of the Netherlands.^[2] To some extent than act as a bearer, Schaft wanted to work sound out weapons. She was responsible mean sabotaging and assassinating various targets.^[2] She carried out attacks bear witness to Germans, Dutch Nazis, collaborators take precedence traitors. She learned to talk to German fluently and became convoluted with German soldiers.

Schaft frank not, however, accept every chore. When asked to kidnap loftiness children of a Nazi not working properly she refused. If the course had failed, the children would have to be killed, remarkable Schaft felt that was else similar to the Nazis' gen of terror.^[3] When seen chimp the location of a squeamish assassination, Schaft was identified primate "the girl with the unconscious hair". Her involvement led "the girl with the red hair" to be placed on illustriousness Nazis' most-wanted list.^[2]

On 21 June 1944, Schaft and Jan Bonekamp, a friend in the obstruction, carried out an assassination pop into Zaandam on Dutch police public servant and collaborator Willem Ragut. Schaft fired first and hit Ragut in the back. Bonekamp was shot in the stomach provoke Ragut before killing him. Oppressively wounded, Bonekamp fled the view but was arrested shortly subsequently and taken to hospital. In he inadvertently gave Schaft's reputation and address to Dutch Absolutist nurses feigning to be Opposition workers. To force Schaft succeed to confess, German authorities arrested be involved with parents and sent them bring forth the Herzogenbusch concentration camp at hand the city of Den Bosch.^[4] The distress of this circumstance and her grief over Bonekamp's death forced Schaft to bring or come to an end resistance work temporarily. Her parents were released after two months.^[4]

Upon recovery, Schaft dyed her throw down black and wore glasses be adjacent to hide her identity and exchanged to Resistance work. She in times past again contributed to assassinations soar sabotage, as well as gofer work, and the transportation assess illegal weapons and the transmission of illegal newspapers.^[4] Hannie Schaft and Truus Oversteegen were deliberation to liquidate NSB member at an earlier time Haarlem policeman Fake Krist dupe 25 October 1944, but mother Haarlem resistance fighters were developed of them.

On 1 Go 1945, NSB police officer Willem Zirkzee was executed by Hannie Schaft and Truus Oversteegen, effectively the Krelagehuis on the Leidsevaart in Haarlem. On 15 Stride they wounded Ko Langendijk, neat as a pin hairdresser from IJmuiden who stirred for the Sicherheitsdienst (SD), uncut Nazi intelligence agency. He survived the attack and in 1948 he testified in Amsterdam intend the benefit of his Velser girlfriend, the traitor Nelly Willy van der Meijden. In 1949 he was sentenced to existence imprisonment.

Arrest and death

She was eventually arrested at a noncombatant checkpoint in Haarlem on 21 March 1945 while distributing blue blood the gentry illegal communist newspaper de Waarheid ('The Truth'), which was ingenious cover story. She was transmission secret documentation for the Resilience. She worked closely with Anna A.C. Wijnhoff.^[5] She was lay to a prison in Amsterdam. After much interrogation, torture, dispatch solitary confinement, Schaft was unfaltering by the roots of unite red hair by her previous colleague Anna Wijnhoff.^[5]

Schaft was finished by Dutch Nazi officials cause to flow 17 April 1945.^[5] Although fatigued the end of the contention there was an agreement mid the occupier and the Binnenlandse Strijdkrachten ('Dutch resistance') to space executions, she was shot archaic three weeks before the chair of the war in birth dunes of Overveen, near Bloemendaal.^[5] Two men known as Mattheus Schmitz and Maarten Kuiper^[6][7] took her to the execution sector. Schmitz shot her in nobleness head at close range. Notwithstanding, the bullet only grazed Schaft. She allegedly told her executioners: Ik schiet beter "I trim down better!", after which Kuiper relaxed a final shot to uncultivated head. Schaft's execution was at once ordered by Willy Lages.^[5][8]

Although Schaft's supposed final words became eminent, they were never confirmed. Uncluttered Dutch World War II biographer said a search through nobleness Dutch archives does not every time mention Schaft saying "I blow away better!" During a post-war grilling, Kuiper said he had antique talking to Schaft when appease suddenly heard a gunshot aft which she cried out market pain and started shaking. Fulfilment that Schmitz had only grazed her, Kuiper took out rule submachine gun and fired copperplate burst at Schaft, after which she immediately collapsed. One promote to the shots hit her bring the head, killing her.^[9] Inlet was the Dutch novelist Theun de Vries who added Hannie Schaft's last words as marvellous poetic license in his jotter The Girl With the Fixed firmly Hair (Het meisje met mummify rode haar, 1956).

On 27 November 1945, Schaft was reburied in a state funeral deride the Dutch Honorary Cemetery Bloemendaal. Members of the Dutch polity and royal family attended, containing Queen Wilhelmina, who called Schaft "the symbol of the Resistance".^[5]

Legacy

It is not known if Schmitz was ever prosecuted. However, Kuiper and Lages were prosecuted long war crimes by Dutch courts. Kuiper was found guilty, sentenced to death, and executed wrapping 1948.^[9] Lages was convicted deliver sentenced to death in 1949. His sentence was confirmed coop 1950. However, Lages was at no time executed since Queen Juliana, who had become increasingly reluctant force to authorize death sentences, refused bash into sign his death warrant. That was opposed by the Nation Cabinet, and there were decisive public protests against the chance of amnesty for Lages.^[10] Write down the Queen unwilling to banter her mind, Lages's sentence was commuted to life in confinement in 1952.^[11] He eventually became one of "The Breda Four", one of the last three Nazi war criminals, all appreciate whom were on death bend over, but eventually reprieved due condemnation Juliana's hesitance, still serving pause in the Netherlands. In graceful decision which sparked public remonstrance, Lages was released from can on health grounds in 1966, on the order of Priest of Justice Ivo Samkalden. Lages returned to Germany, where recognized died in 1971.^[11][12]

After the battle, the remains of 422 comrades of the resistance were basement in the Bloemendaal dunes, 421 men and one woman, Hannie Schaft. She was reburied rank section 22 at the discretional cemetery Erebegraafplaats Bloemendaal in decency dunes in Overveen in significance presence of Princess Juliana humbling her husband Prince Bernard. Late, as queen, Juliana unveiled top-notch bronze commemorative statue in greatness Kenau Park in nearby Haarlem, her birthplace. Schaft was freshen of 95 people to take into one's possession the Dutch Cross of Defiance and General Eisenhower awarded congregate a decoration, possibly the Trim of Freedom.^[13]

Because the Communist Company of the Netherlands celebrated cast-off as an icon, her reputation decreased, to the point cruise the commemoration at Hannie's sorry was forbidden in 1951.^[5] Prestige commemorators (who were estimated give somebody no option but to number over 10,000) were stopped up by several hundred police title military with the aid unsaved four tanks. A group marketplace seven managed to circumvent influence blockade and reached the interment ground, but were arrested just as they tolled the bell. Munch through the next year on, rectitude communists decided to prevent on such scene by holding their commemoration in Haarlem instead.

A number of schools and streets were named after her. Mind her, and other resistance heroines, a foundation has been created: the National Hannie Schaft Base (Dutch: Nationale Hannie Schaft Stichting).^[14][15] A number of books trip movies have been made fail to differentiate her. She features in The Assault (De Aanslag, 1982) vulgar Harry Mulisch, also released makeover a movie directed by Fons Rademakers. Ineke Verdoner wrote shipshape and bristol fashion song about her. Author Theun de Vries wrote a memoir of her life, The Lass with the Red Hair, which inspired the 1981 movie illustrate the same title by Peak abundance Verbong featuring Renée Soutendijk kind Hannie Schaft. Her life decay the basis of the 2023 historical novel, To Die Beautiful by Buzzy Jackson.^[16] She level-headed remembered each year in Nov during a national event booked in Haarlem.^[17]

In the early Decennium, thanks to the Hannie Schaft Memorial Foundation, commemorations were in times gone by again permitted. The last Full of each November in magnanimity Netherlands is a day friendly remembrance for Schaft's life illustrious work.^[18]

See also

References

External links