17. Moving On
Courageously, Truus and Freddie Oversteegen soldiered on and kept up the fight, evading capture despite sizeable rewards that were placed on their heads. After the war, Truus put down her arms, and went about settling down and raising a family. She got married in November of 1945, and had four children. She made a name for herself as a respected artist and sculptress, and as a public speaker about war, antisemitism, and tolerance.
In 1967, Yad Vashem, Israel’s official memorial to the Holocaust, designated her as one of the Righteous Among Nations – an honorific for non-Jews who risked their lives during the Holocaust to save Jews from the Nazis. In 1982, she wrote a memoir about her wartime experiences, When Not, Now Not, Never. Truus died on June 18th, 2016. Her younger sister Freddie passed away on September 5th, 2018.