She walked into Adolf Eichmann’s office alone. He told her he wasn’t accustomed to dealing with women. Her reply? “I’m sorry, but I forgot to bring my husband. You’ll have to deal with me.” Her name was Geertruida “Truus” Wijsmuller, a Dutch woman who would risk everything to save Jewish children from the Nazis. In December 1938, Truus met Eichmann in Vienna. He gave her an almost impossible challenge: take hundreds of Jewish children out of Austria within five days. He expected her to fail. He had badly underestimated her. Truus contacted organisations, arranged transportation, negotiated with officials, and persuaded terrified parents to entrust their children to her. Within days, she helped organise a transport carrying hundreds of children to safety. But she didn’t stop there. Known affectionately as Tante Truus — Auntie Truus — she continued organising rescue journeys, navigating borders, paperwork, and Nazi restrictions to help children escape persecution. In May 1940, as German forces invaded the Netherlands, she helped arrange the departure of another group of refugee children aboard the ship SS Bodegraven. She remained behind, separated from the children she had helped save. Even under Nazi occupation, she continued helping people in danger. The Gestapo arrested and questioned her, but she was eventually released. In 1966, Yad Vashem recognised her as Righteous Among the Nations, honouring non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust. Truus died in Amsterdam in 1978, but her courage deserves to be remembered far beyond the Netherlands. She had no official diplomatic title. She commanded no army. She simply refused to accept that frightened children had to die because powerful people said nothing could be done. Sometimes, history changes because one ordinary person refuses to take “impossible” for an answer. And sometimes, that person is a woman who walks into a Nazi office alone ♥️