Listen | Hannie Schaft Plaque
This Hannie Schaft plaque with the text "Forward and not forgotten" commemorates Jannetje Johanna Schaft, the most famous Dutch resistance fighter.
Under her pseudonym 'Hannie', she became known as 'the girl with the red hair'. As a resistance fighter, she helped people in hiding by providing them with stolen voucher cards and fake identity cards, and carried out attacks on Germans and collaborators. She was arrested on 21 March 1945 and executed in the dunes near Bloemendaal on 17 April 1945, three weeks before the end of the war. Her body rests in the Bloemendaal Cemetery of Honour, where a plaque commemorates her bravery.
Although Hannie Schaft never lived in Oostzaan, she has connections here. Her father, Pieter Claasz. Schaft, was born in Oostzaan on 15 March 1885. This later teacher was a socialist and idealist and spent his younger years there. Hannie therefore regularly visited her family in Oostzaan.
