Truus van Lier
Resistance hero and the girl next door to Truus Schröder and the Rietveld Schröder House.
Truus van Lier
Truus van Lier (1921-1943) lived in the house next to the Rietveld Schröder House, where the Ticket Office is located currently.
During the Second World War, Truus van Lier accompanied Jews to hiding places. She delivered messages and weapons and infiltrated the NSB and the Wehrmacht in Amersfoort. She quickly became involved in the armed resistance, with all its consequences.
The girl with the forget-me-not eyes'
Truus Schröder called her neighbour Truus van Lier “the girl with the forget-me-not eyes”. She characterized her as a smart little sister, just like their mother.
Truus' mother worked as a chemist at Utrecht University, a progressive position for women at the time.
Her father was a lawyer and came from a wealthy Jewish family.
Grandfather Lambertus van Lier was one of the founders of the Utrechtsche Mortgage Bank, located at Drift 17.
Truus went to primary school on the Mecklenburglaan, the Queen Wilhelmina School.
She played hockey and sang in a church choir. In this photo, you see Truus van Lier on the right, her older sister Wilhelmina on the left.
Truus's older sister Wilhelmina would later have told Truus Schröder:
“They loved to play, and everything was allowed here. Acting, and running up and down the stairs, they've experienced a lot of things here.”
Truus van Lier obtained her gymnasium diploma at the Christian Lyceum in Zeist. The Second World War had just begun at that time.
On May 10, 1940, the Germans invaded the Netherlands. On May 14, Rotterdam was bombed and when the Germans threatened to destroy Utrecht as well, the Netherlands surrendered to the enemy.
In those first months of the war, Truus van Lier enrolled as a law student at Utrecht University. Not without reason.
Truus' older cousin, Trui van Lier (1914 — 2002), established the Kindjeshaven nursery closeby, at Prins Hendriklaan 4.
By caring for Jewish children, Trui van Lier and Jet Berdenis van Berlekom managed to save around 150 Jewish children.
Truus' older cousin Trui van Lier said:
“Even before the war began, I already knew how badly the Jews were being treated by the Germans. All those people who did nothing... People thought the Germans were decent people.”
Truus van Lier also resisted, but unlike her niece, she joined the armed resistance.
Truus was a member of the literary underground magazine Lichting. She distributed illegal newspapers, messages and weapons. In addition, the young law student accompanied Jews to hiding places. Truus also infiltrated the NSB and the Wehrmacht in Amersfoort.
Truus van Lier became involved in the Amsterdam resistance group CS-6. The members of CS-6 focused on espionage, sabotage and liquidations.
Truus was willing to go to great lengths to get rid of the German rulers. CS-6 meetings were also held in her home at Prins Hendriklaan 48.
On September 3, 1943, Truus van Lier liquidated police commissioner Gerard Kerlen near the Willemsplantsoen in Utrecht.
He was an NSB member who was about to have a group of Jewish people and resistance members arrested.
After her attack, Truus went into hiding in Haarlem.
Meanwhile, SS member Willy Lages offered 10,000 guilders to whoever had the golden tip about the perpetrator, “an approximately 20-year-old female cyclist” in a “gray plaid coat”.
A few days later, Truus was betrayed by a woman who had also been part of the CS-6 resistance group, but who was forced by the Germans to spy for them and betray resistance members.
On September 14, 1943, Truus van Lier was arrested and imprisoned in Amsterdam.
Truus Schröder in one of her letters after the end of the Second World War:
“Did you hear what happened to our next door neighbour?"
Truus' father was looking for his daughter after the war. He did not know what had happened to her and placed this ad in various newspapers.
It wasn't until July 1946 that Truus's father received official confirmation that his daughter had been executed in Sachsenhausen concentration camp.
Together with two other women, Reina Prinsen Geerligs and Nel Hissink, Truus van Lier was executed on October 27, 1943.
Witnesses stated that the three women would have walked to the firing squad singing and with their heads held high.
Only a few women joined the armed resistance: This makes the story of Truus van Lier such an extraordinary one.
Many people know Hannie Schaft through Theun de Vries' 1956 book and 1981 film, but Truus van Lier committed her attack on Kerlen even before Hannie Schaft pulled her arms. Before the girl with the red hair, there was also “the girl with the forget-me-not eyes”.
Since 2004, Truus van Lier has been honoured with a daffodil monument. Every year around April, her name blossoms in yellow letters along the Singel, near the Willemsplantsoen, where Truus shot the NSB Police Commissioner Gerard Kerlen.
In 2022, a bronze statue of Truus van Lier, made by artist Joyce Overheul, was placed on the opposite side of the canal.
On April 22, 2021, Truus van Lier's 100th birthday, a plaque in front of the Ticket Office at the Rietveld Schroder House was unveiled.
The life of a resistance woman
This story was written by Jessica van Geel. She also wrote the book 'Truus van Lier, het leven van een verzetsvrouw'. The book is only available in Dutch.
