To Die Beautiful : A Novel


 
 
 
 Also by Buzzy Jackson
 
 The Inspirational Atheist: Wise Words on the Wonder and Meaning of Life
 Shaking the Family Tree: Blue Bloods, Black Sheep, and Other Obsessions of an Accidental Genealogist
 A Bad Woman Feeling Good: Blues and the Women Who Sing Them
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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 Copyright © 2023 by Buzzy Worldwide LLC
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 library of congress cataloging-in-publication data
 Names: Jackson, Buzzy, author.
 Title: To die beautiful: a novel / Buzzy Jackson.
 Description: New York: Dutton, [2023]
 Identifiers: LCCN 2022020456 | ISBN 9780593187210 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780593187227 (ebook)
 Subjects: LCSH: Schaft, Hannie, 1920–1945—Fiction. | World War, 1939–1945—Collaborationists—Netherlands—Fiction. | World War, 1939–1945—Underground movements—Netherlands—Fiction. | Netherlands—History—German occupation, 1940–1945. | LCGFT: Historical fiction. | Novels.
 Classification: LCC PS3610.A3454 T6 2023 | DDC 813/.6—dc23/eng/20220711
 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022020456
 Cover design by Kaitlin Kall and Jason Booher
 Figure by Mark Owens/Arcangel; canal by ElOjoTorpe/Getty Images
 book design by Katy Riegel, adapted for ebook by Molly Jeszke
 This is a work of historical fiction inspired by the extraordinary young women who bravely served as Nazi Resistance fighters in Holland during World War II. The narrative’s references to real-life historical figures, events, and places are not intended to change the entirely fictional nature of the work. Names, characters, dialogue, events, and places either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. In all other respects, any resemblance to persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
 pid_prh_6.0_143319814_c0_r0
 
 
 
 Dedicated to:
 Rhoda and Leon F. Litwack, lives devoted to love and justice
 
 
 
 
 I spent five years sitting next to her in class. She was very quiet, never joined in, and did not attend school parties. She never laughed and rarely smiled. But then, one time, somebody teased her. She reacted very fiercely. And that’s when I realized: if you mess with this kitten, you better wear gloves.
 —Cornelius Mol, on his high school classmate Hannie Schaft
 I have a lot of respect for pacifists. I don’t mean people who just profess to love peace. I mean those who stand up for their beliefs, because the world is currently drunk on war.
 —Hannie Schaft, excerpted from her high school essay “People I Admire”
 We would be starting a kind of secret army . . . and we were the only girls.
 —Freddie Oversteegen, on joining the Dutch Resistance at age fourteen with her sister, Truus
 
 
 
 Contents
 Historical Note
 Prologue
 1945, Amstelveenseweg Prison, Amsterdam
 Part One: OZO
 1940–1943, Amsterdam
 Part Two: The RVV
 1943–1944, Haarlem
 Part Three: The Hunger Winter
 1944–1945, Haarlem
 Part Four: The Dunes
 March–April 1945, Harlem, Amsterdam, Bloemendaal
 Afterword
 Author’s Note
 Acknowledgments
 Notes
 
 _143319814_
 
 
 Historical Note
 Nazi Germany invaded the neutral Netherlands on 10 May 1940, destroying much of the historic city of Rotterdam in a blitzkrieg attack, and took power five days later. The fanatically antisemitic Austrian Arthur Seyss-Inquart, who had colluded with Adolf Hitler in the Anschluss and Kristallnacht in 1938, was then appointed Reichskommissar (Reich commissioner) of the Netherlands, setting in motion the terror to come.
 Anne Frank is the most famous victim of the Dutch Holocaust. Her story—resisting, hiding, betrayal, murder—was not unusual. More Jews were killed in the Netherlands than in any other Nazi-occupied European country: an estimated 75 percent (approximately 102,000 individuals) 
 
 Prologue
 1945
 Amstelveenseweg Prison, Amsterdam
 You can walk right past your fate your whole life without seeing it, but prisons are inconspicuous by design. The Amstelveenseweg prison occupies an entire city block, hewn out of slabs of pitted gray stone like something built for a pharaoh. I must have seen the building a thousand times on my way to the university. Yet none of this is familiar.
 As I’m escorted into the central atrium, the air cools, the acoustics sharpen. Low whispers echo off soaring steel beams. If there are male captives here, I don’t see them. Instead, women of all ages, from lanky