Three Ordinary Girls: The Remarkable Story of Three Dutch Teenagers Who Became Spies, Saboteurs, Nazi Assassins--and WWII Heroes

(Paperback)

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The astonishing true story of three fearless female resisters during WWII whose youth and innocence belied their extraordinary daring in the Nazi-occupied Netherlands. Recruited as teenagers, Hannie Schaft, and Dutch sisters Truus and Freddie Oversteegen fulfilled their harrowing missions as spies, saboteurs, and Nazi assassins with remarkable courage, but their stories have remained largely unknown...until now. Truus Oversteegen, her younger sister Freddie, and their friend Hannie Schaft, were just teenagers when the commander of The Dutch Royal Army surrendered to the Nazis. Overnight, nine million Netherlanders were suddenly under the heel of the Nazi boot. As the German-controlled government slowly began to pen in the entire Jewish community and force them indoors, along with the requisite yellow star signifying Jood, so the girls were compelled to become involved in The Resistance. As Anne Frank and her family were just going into hiding only miles away in Amsterdam, the girls started with simple acts of covert illegality- lifting German ID cards to counterfeit them; distributing fliers announcing strikes, passing out anti-Nazi literature. With each initiative, the danger became more pronounced, the stakes higher. Soon they were called on for bigger, deadlier jobs- Ferrying Jewish children to safeguard locations. Stockpiling weapons. Detonating bombs. Intelligence-gathering. Spying. Sabotage. Murder. With each assignment, they became an integral part of the Dutch resistance. But it was not without peril, heartache, suffering, or loss. Award-winning historian Tim Brady paints a vivid portrait of Tuus, Freddie, and Hannie, three ordinary Dutch girls whose selfless acts of courage as they sought to undermine the Nazis and their Dutch collaborators were nothing short of extraordinary.

Reviews

Praise for Three Ordinary Girls "In the Twentieth Century, Nazi occupation of European countries confronted millions of ordinary citizens with monumental choices, mostly disguised as simple, daily acts. This triple biography tells how three very young people made the extremely difficult choice to actively fight against their fascist oppressors. A book like this makes you wonder what choices you would make in the same situation... The stories of these three brave young women is a powerful example of counterfactual history." -Medium "Historian Brady (Twelve Desperate Miles) delivers a dramatic group portrait of three teenage girls who fought in the Dutch resistance movement during WWII. Brady conveys the inhumanity of the period with precision.... This moving story spotlights the extraordinary heroism of everyday people during the war and the Holocaust." -Publishers Weekly "Brady has explored little-known aspects of World War II, from the life of Ted Roosevelt Jr. (His Father's Son, 2017) to the story of a civilian freighter that aided in a critical Moroccan invasion (Twelve Desperate Miles, 2012). Now he turns his attention to the Netherlands, highlighting three young women who worked for the Dutch resistance....The women trained as fighters, learning hand-to-hand combat and practicing their shooting. Their missions were often based on their ability to infiltrate male spaces by taking advantage of soldiers' assumptions about femininity: that the girls were naive, stupid, and innocent when they were anything but.....This book will please Brady's fans as well as those who are interested in new and different stories of WWII." -Booklist "Exhaustively researched and written with both authority and style, Tim Brady's Three Ordinary Girls is history that reads like a novel. A vivid and unforgettable portrait of three young women who put their lives on the line in a very personal fight against Naziism, this book is a page-turner and is highly recommended." -Stephen Harding, New York Times best-selling author of The Last Battle. "James Bond on bicycles, Brady's Three Ordinary Girls are NOT so Ordinary. These three teenage girls: Truus, her little sister Freddie, and the redheaded Hannie are courage personified and key members of the legendary Dutch resistance. Sometimes reckless, often naive, always patriotic, our heroines wield guns like cowgirls, while risking their lives to fight the German occupation. And just when you think the Allies have landed and Europe is saved, things take a turn for the worse. Whether they are assassinating Nazis from their bicycles or smuggling Jewish children and satchels of weapons under the nose of the Gestapo, following these three not-so ordinary girls is a nail-biting experience, an exciting book that you won't be able to put down until the last page." -Heather Dune Macadam, author of 999: The Extraordinary Young Women of the First Official Jewish Transport to Auschwitz "An important, untold story from WWII that needed to be told. A brave tale about an incredibly brave sisterhood who fought for all that was good and right and just in the world. The word 'hero' tends to be over-used these days, but not here - not with these utterly extraordinary heroines." -Damien Lewis, #1 International Bestselling author of Churchill's Hellraisers and Churchill's Band of Brothers "Three Ordinary Girls delivers a lean and fast-paced true tale about a group of young women who assassinated Nazis, sabotaged bridges, saved Jewish children, and delivered priceless documents and information in the service of the Dutch resistance during World War II. Tim Brady writes captivatingly of under-recognized heroes and self-sacrifice in a chapter of the war's history that will now be better known." -Jack El-Hai, author of The Nazi and the Psychiatrist and The Lost Brothers, and winner of the 2020 Book Award in Biography/History from the American Society of Journalists and Authors

Author Bio

Tim Brady is an award-winning history author whose critically acclaimed books include Twelve Desperate Miles, A Death in San Pietro, His Father's Son and Three Ordinary Girls. In addition to contributing numerous articles, reviews, essays and short stories for a wide range of magazines, newspapers and journals, he has written and helped develop a number of television documentaries, including the Peabody Award-winning series, Liberty! The American Revolution for PBS. He lives in St. Paul, Minnesota, and is a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop.