Esmée Adrienne van Eeghen (7 July 1918 - 7 September 1944) was a Dutch resistance fighter in World War II.

Van Eeghen followed him and supported him and his friend Pieter Meersburg to hide Jewish children on behalf of the Landelijke Organisatie voor Hulp aan Onderduikers (LO) in the north of the country.

[1] After a raid by the Frisian resistance on the employment office at the Zaailand in Leeuwarden on 25 July 1943, she decided to stay in Friesland for good.

Piet Oberman [nl] (resistance name Piet Kramer), who succeeded Krijn van den Helm as KP leader in Friesland in the summer of 1944, stated after the war: "Esmée was extremely well aware of everything related to the resistance movement in Friesland, and she knew many senior people in other provinces with whom she came into contact as a lead courier.

This is also confirmed by Pieter Wijbenga, a member of the KP in Leeuwarden, who said after the war that he and Krijn wanted to use van Eeghen to lure two SD men to Makkum where they would be liquidated.

However, van Eeghen fell in love with a German officer, Hans Schmälzlein, Oberzahlmeister at the Verpflegungsamt in Groningen, and went to live with him.

In the meantime, an investigation had shown that she had not committed treason, but that the wounded resistance fighter Ben de Vries had fallen into the hands of the SD.

On the evening of 7 September 1944, she was shot dead together with Luitje Kremer, 24 years old and a member of the KP Noord-Drenthe, by a firing squad led by Untersturmführer Ernst Knorr [nl].

The death of Krijn van den Helm, who was shot dead by SD member Pieter Johan Faber [nl] in Amersfoort, has also been attributed to her.

The figure Sylvia in the book Journey Through the Night by Anne de Vries is loosely based on Esmée van Eeghen.

Paul Verhoeven based his heroine Rachel Stein in the film Zwartboek on Esmée van Eeghen.

[6] There is also an opera, Esmée, by composer Theo Loevendie and librettist Jan Blokker about her affair with Hans Schmälzlein,[7] which premiered at the 1995 Holland Festival.