Truus Menger - peace -bronze- - Sold

Cast in bronze, mounted in a recessed frame of 41x41 cm. The work is in new condition. Will be shipped registered and insured.
Truus Menger-Oversteegen (Schoten, August 29, 1923 – Grootebroek, June 18, 2016) was a Dutch sculptor and painter. During the Second World War she was a resistance fighter in the Council of Resistance (RVV) and she performed many resistance activities together with her sister Freddie Oversteegen and her friend Hannie Schaft. On March 1, 1945, NSB police officer Willem Zirkzee was executed by Hannie Schaft and Truus Oversteegen, near the Krelagehuis on the Leidsevaart in Haarlem. On March 15, they injured Ko Langendijk, a hairdresser from IJmuiden who worked for the Security Service (SD). He survived the attack and in 1948 he testified in Amsterdam on behalf of his Velser girlfriend, the traitor Nelly Willy van M. In 1949 he was sentenced to life imprisonment. An earlier attack on Langendijk by Jan Bonekamp had also failed. Schaft and Oversteegen tried in vain to free Jan Bonekamp when he was seriously injured and arrested by the Germans and taken to the Wilhelmina Gasthuis in Amsterdam. Hannie Schaft and Truus Oversteegen planned to liquidate Fake Krist on October 25, 1944, but other Haarlem resistance fighters beat them to it. After Hannie Schaft was arrested on March 21, 1945, the resistance believed that she had been locked up at the Weteringschans. Disguised as a German nurse, Oversteegen tried to free her with a story that she had to take Schaft for medical examination. She cried a lot to convince the people there. However, Hannie Schaft turned out to have been on the Amstelveenseweg and had since been executed. After the war, Truus Menger-Oversteegen was a regular guest speaker at universities and secondary schools on war, anti-Semitism, tolerance and indifference. In 1982 she wrote a book about her experiences in the war: Not then, not now, never. In honor of her 75th birthday in 1998, the book was translated into English Not Then, Not Now, Not Ever. A German translation was also published in 2000, entitled Im letzten Augenblick. In 1997, the Austrian capital Vienna premiered a play based on the lives of Hannie, Freddie and Truus. A play was also made in the Netherlands. After the war, Menger started a career as a visual artist and became known under the name of her husband Piet Menger, whom she had met in the resistance. Their eldest daughter was named after Hannie Schaft. This Hannie Menger was chairwoman of the National Hannie Schaft Memorial Foundation. (source Wikipedia)