More than 1300 names. All from North Holland women who resisted during the war years. Some of them distributed illegal newspapers, others forged identity cards, helped people in hiding or risked their lives in the armed resistance. All of them were brave enough to stand up to the German occupier. One of them is the Amsterdam Trijntje van Keulen. She was only 16 when the war started.
The most normal thing in the world
Trijntje van Keulen, also known as Truus, grew up in a working-class family in the Jordaan. Her parents are communists and strongly anti-fascist. For Trijntje it is the most natural thing in the world that she starts to resist the Nazis at a young age. She starts by distributing illegal newspapers and pasting pamphlets, but soon her share in the resistance increases.
She gets to know her later husband Johan Bosman in the ice cream parlor where she works and by chance they find out that they are both illegal. Johan asks Trijntje if she wants to help him put people in hiding. She does dangerous courier work for his resistance group and transports illegal papers, receipts and money for people in hiding. She also helps with liquidations and robberies.
Narrowly escaping death
As a woman, Trijntje is less likely to be suspected of illegal activities. She’s getting more and more reckless. In a cafe on the Nieuwendijk, Trijntje meets a drunken officer of the Kriegsmarine. She sees that his gun is exposed in his jacket and she decides to steal it. She already has the weapon in her fingers when the officer catches her. He punches her hard in the face. Because the cafe is also a hiding place for resistance fighters, she gets help. A fight ensues in which the officer is shot dead. Trijntje manages to escape in the nick of time.
Although her resistance activities were very dangerous and she narrowly escaped death several times, she is never afraid, says her son Johan Bosman: “My father, who was also in the resistance, was much more anxious, he was worried if my mother did something. dangerous. But she was never afraid. She just thought she was doing what had to be done.”
A hero
Johan Bosman is an adolescent when he first hears about his mother’s resistance history. Before that time, the war was not a topic of conversation at his home. “The only thing we learned from a very young age is that you should never betray your boyfriend. You were always in solidarity with each other.” Only when he is about 16 does it become clear to him what his mother has done in the resistance. Johan: “I didn’t think much about it then, but now I realize: my mother was a hero.”
Trijntje van Keulen is one of the many forgotten women in the resistance. After the war and the convalescence camp, life goes on as usual. Trijntje, who is now called Truus, marries and has children and builds up a normal life. Yet the war is always present.
In 1981 she received the resistance commemorative cross, as one of the few women to receive this award. after so many years there is finally recognition for what she has done.
The Noord Hollands Archief has had 135 photos of resistance women colored. They now hang in a permanent exhibition in the Janskerk in Haarlem. The photo of Trijntje is also in between.