1940-1945. The resistance in the dutch province of Limburg

Women in the resistance

J. Howard Miller "We Can Do It!" 1942 USA World War II homefront poster

The mortal victims within the resistance were almost all men. If a couple was arrested, the woman was soon released in most cases, as the occupiers assumed that she was no longer a danger on her own. One of the countless examples was Harry Miltenburg and his wife, whose name is not mentioned anywhere, of course. For in those days, even more than today, people thought, " BEHIND every successful man, there is a strong woman." This was in fact often the case with the resistance. After the war, it was usually the men who received the medals and other recognition for their heroic acts. The women’s heroic acts were mainly performed behind their husbands. But they did not just cook for the people in hiding or bring them food in the bottom of the baby carriage under a child, as Coen Grotaers’ wife did. Although this was already dangerous enough. Most of them stayed behind their men in their obsequious role.
The exception to this rule were the couriers, or rather the female couriers of the resistance. They were of course people who had to be able to move around discreetly, for example professional drivers or others who were on the road every day for their work. After it became increasingly clear that the most discreet couriers were in fact women on bicycles, looking like "housewives with shopping bags" and who would not be deported to Germany for slave labor, they took over this task successfully. However, even among the couriers, there were many more male victims, who were checked more often. Moreover it did not correspond to the Nazi thinking, that a woman could not participate in any resistance.
But not every woman was lucky enough to be underestimated, as the list below shows.

• Nationaal monument Kamp Vught: ⦁ NL: Bunkerdrama
• Wikipedia: ⦁ NL: Bunkerdrama ⦁ DE: Bunkertragödie ⦁ EN: Bunker Tragedy
• Frauen im Widerstand. Deutsche politische Häftlinge im Frauen-KZ Ravensbrück: Geschichte und Nachgeschichte
• Go to all the fallen resistance fighters in our digital monument.
• Statistics including the numbers of men and women, broken down by group and location.