Dutch Girl: Audrey Hepburn and World War II
By Robert Matzen
“The war was very, very important to her. It made her who she was.”
Luca Dotti, Audrey Hepburn's son
Robert Matzen was born in Pittsburgh and grew up in the Mon Valley of Pennsylvania. He graduated from Cal State and immediately published his first book “Research Made Easy: a Guide for Students and Writers” in 1987. I wouldn't recommend leaning too heavily on that book however because it was written before the internet was developed. In 2001 he worked as a filmmaker for the feature documentary When the Forest Ran Red, a documentary on young George Washington in the French Indian War (I think I saw that one…). Mr. Matzen has said that experience deeply influenced his research style and gave him a desire to take a more intimate perspective in telling history. For ten years he worked as a communications specialist in NASA headquarters in Washington D.C using his film making experience to write and direct films for NASA facilities across the country (Nice.). He began working on Hollywood histories with Errol Flynn Slept Here, writing about the house that Errol Flynn built for himself; that book was published in 2015. He swiftly found himself in demand, especially after writing Mission: Jimmy Stewart and the Fight for Europe, a book on Jimmy Stewart's wartime service, where he served as a squadron commander in the Army Air Corps. Today Mr. Matzen lives in the Pittsburgh area with his wife Mary. Dutch Girl, his latest book and the subject of today's review, was published in April 2019 by Goodknight books.
Let's be honest, any World War II story in Europe is going to have its real beginnings in at least the early to mid-1930s, if not World War I. This story starts with Audrey's parents, Joseph Ruston and Baroness Ella Van Heemstra. Joseph was born in Austria but was a British citizen and because of that Ella and Audrey were both British citizens. Ella was the fifth daughter of a minor nobleman, her title came with no wealth or land but her family did have a certain social relevance (Kinda like British hereditary peers, at this point, if I remember correctly.), her father served as colonial governor of Suriname but quit when his government refused to back his efforts to hold an American mining company in check and diversify the economy of the colony (Weeeee Colonial Capitalism! I will direct you, comrades, to the writings of Rosa Luxemburg on this topic.). Honestly the fact that Ella had a title but no wealth is likely what led to their divorce and Joseph would be an absent figure for much of Audrey's life. Audrey was raised in a single-parent home or a home with grandparents or uncles and aunts. Perhaps the more relevant fact was that Joseph and Ella were both fascists and members of the British fascist party, the British Union of Fascists (Every last one of whom should have been taken out back and shot.). It's likely easier to understand in 2020 than it would have been in 1990, but there was a time when fascism was well... fashionable (They’re back. The US president is one, down to using Nazi dogwhistles and open iconography rather than subtext in his campaign ads. If you disagree, go fuck yourself.). With the great depression in full swing and the horror of World War I still on the world, the great experiment of democracy seemed to have failed. Many believed that the only thing to do was to abandon democracy and embrace either soviet-style communism or fascism (Never mind that there was the example of the CNT. Poor CNT.). A famous example of this that appears in the book is Unity Mitford, one of the girls known as the Scandal Sisters. They were daughters of an aristocratic family in Great Britain who divided themselves with some supporting fascism and others communism. Unity was known to go so far as to spend months in Germany practically stalking Adolf Hitler (Creepy, but if she scared him with her creepiness, good. Fascists should live in perpetual fear.). Ella herself saw fascism as a spiritual movement that would restore joy and pride to Europe (Wow, I know hindsight is 20/20 but that is some delusional bullshit right there.). She even wrote two articles that were published in support of fascism and in 1935 visited Berlin with her husband and Unity to meet Hitler, who went so far as to kiss Ella's hand (Excuse me as I vomit into my mouth.). By 1944, Ella was hiding downed British pilots (Good. Like Wilhelm Canaris, it is possible to change your mind before you commit atrocities, and the world will forgive you. If you are a fascist right now, just stop. That’s all you have to do. Give up your fascist ideology. You don’t even have to help us fight them, all you have to do is stop.) and her daughter was volunteering for a resistance doctor. This book is Ella's story as well as Audrey's; although because of Ella's decades of work to hide the fact that she ever supported fascism piecing, it together is harder than you might think. Still, there is a journey of Ella from a privileged, upper-class supporter of fascism to embittered resister of Nazi occupation and I can't help but wonder how much that journey influenced Aubrey's own as she was all of 11 years old when the Nazi's invaded the Netherlands.
Mr. Matzen, in the pursuit of providing us context, tells us a bit about Audrey's life before the war. We learn that despite the fact that the marriage fell apart, Joseph and Ella worked to have Aubrey educated in England in her early life. Ella thought it would be better and in some degree safer for Audrey to be English. When in the late 30s the war clouds gathered Ella moved quickly to bring Audrey back to the Netherlands, again thinking it safer for her. Now today that decision seems laughable but in 1938, most Dutch citizens believed that any war would pass right over them. After all neutrality in World War I, had proven to be the right choice and most of them believed there was no damn reason for either the British Empire or Nazi Germany to invade them (Yeah, in retrospect it seems silly, but at the time, they figured their southern neighbor Belgium would be the thoroughfare of the war, and that they’d escape invasion and occupation. Poor Netherlands.). As we know today, Hitler disagreed and Ella would have to live the rest of her life with the knowledge that she had pulled her daughter right into the line of fire and perhaps worse, she had helped build that fire in the first place. While Audrey - with the mania only a child or a teenager is capable of - focused herself entirely on ballet dancing and her goal of becoming a prima ballerina (Aawwww). This was always the great ambition of her life and Audrey would never really consider herself a professional actress. There is an odd irony in the fact that her instructor, Winja Marova, was a Dutch Jewish woman pretending to be a Russian (Woah.). Winja's husband even joined the Dutch Nazi Party to keep the Nazi's eyes off of her (Double Woah. Okay, we have found the Only Acceptable Reasons to ever join a Nazi party. Maskirovka, and protecting “undesirable” family members). Ella acted to protect herself and her daughter, even becoming romantically involved with an SS officer and working for Germans in the local hospital (Hopefully she passed on the pillow talk to SOE.). This doesn't mean that Audrey was unaffected, Mr. Martzen uses quotes from Audrey herself to show what memories burned themselves into her and went further by tying together the events from the war to the behavior that Audrey would show in the future. Ella also becomes a stage mother at this point, as Audrey starts preforming in public, often to acclaim and praise in front of Dutch and Nazi audiences. While Mr. Matzen never comes out and says it, there's a heavy implication of cold-blooded calculation on the part of the adults here. Ms. Marova, for example, was likely using Audrey's public performances as an additional layer of armor between her and the SS (Can’t blame her.), Ella was likely hoping that every scrap of stardom and attention Audrey would get would shield the family from harm. Ella's hopes were doomed to failure, however.
Audrey was born into a noble family and one of those relations was her uncle Otto Ernst Gelder Van Limburg Stirum. He was a judge who had quit because he refused to name names for the Nazis as well as refusing to sentence people for political crimes (Good for him!). Audrey spent a lot of time with him and her aunt, at times even living in their home for months, so she was very close to both of them. In 1942, he was taken hostage by the Nazis who announced they would kill hostages if there were any acts by underground resisters (The Dutch Resistance was very active. One of my personal heroes, Willem Arondeus, blew up the Municipal Office for Population Registration with a bunch of his friends, and his last words before the Nazis shot him were “Let it be known that homosexuals are not cowards”. There were also teenage girls who lured Nazis into the woods to be shot. Glory to all those who fight fascists. Happy wrath month, motherfuckers.). At this point, the Netherlands was considered an unruly province having worked to shield Jews from the Nazis to the point of brawling in the street with the SD, the homegrown version of the SS, and preforming general strikes against Nazi policies (Yaaassss!). When the resistance decided they couldn't let the Nazi's stay their hand and attempted sabotage against the train system, Audrey's uncle and 4 other men were taken out to the forest and shot (Rest In Power, Comrades. You and your sacrifice shall never be forgotten.). The ground they were murdered on remains a shrine in the Netherlands to this day and the poles they were tied to can be viewed in a museum. This shattered the family, Ella would break off her ties with the Germans and Aubrey, who was only entering her teenage years, never forgot. Ella moved them to the village of Velp, where Audrey came into contact with Dr. Hendrik Visser't Hooft, a doctor of medicine and leader of the local resistance.
Audrey eagerly volunteered for him, first running messages and small packages (including one episode of running food to a hiding English pilot) and later dancing in secret concerts to raise money for the local resistance. She also likely wore dog tags for these missions, as she could end up the victim of a mis-dropped bomb. It was during this period that Audrey and her family suffered the most, and not just from the Germans. The air war would reach white-hot intensity with the arrival of the US Army Air Force leading massive daylight bombing raids into Germany, while British Air forces bombed Germany at night. The sky above Velp was lit by tracer rounds and flak bursts, while below the Germans ruthlessly looted the Netherlands of every piece of food they could. Audrey lived in near-starvation until liberation. Her iconic slenderness may very well have been a result of the malnutrition she suffered from age 13 to 16. The worst came when following orders from London, the rail workers of the Netherlands launched a strike, and as a consequence food and fuel were unable to be moved around the Netherlands. The village of Velp was also the scene of fighting during the failed Operation Market-garden (I’ll be over here wincing) and became a target of air attacks when the SS turned Velp into a rallying point for retreating German armies. However in 1945, Velp, Ella, and Audrey were freed of Nazi Occupation by Canadian forces and the war would, at least on Dutch soil, come to an end. The effects of the war, according to those who knew her, never did (We’re still fighting aftershocks. Fascism refuses to fucking die.).
Mr. Matzen gives us a colorful and careful account of a child's life in occupied Europe, as well as the compromises and maneuvers of her elders to keep her and themselves safe in a dangerous time. Nor does he disregard Aubrey Hepburn's adult life but takes pain to connect that childhood to the adult and show us how the scars of those events affected and influenced the full-grown woman. Not just the emotional burdens or the physical effects of coming of age while starving but the continuing strain of having to hide her Mother's sins. Today, I dare to think we could understand and perhaps forgive Ella and I think most of us would never dream to hold Audrey accountable for her Mother or for dancing for Nazis as a 12-year-old girl. However in the 1950s and 1960s? Even though so many people had much more grievous sins, or perhaps because they had those sins and were eager to hide them, no such mercy would have been shown. One adult episode that stood out to me was Aubrey's reaction to the publication of Anne Frank, the reading of that diary in Audrey's own words ``destroyed her.” Likely because reading it made her confront her own traumas. If you want to see a picture of a woman in stress and pain and trying to hide it, track down the picture of Aubrey Hepburn meeting Anne Frank's father in Switzerland. Despite Otto Frank asking her directly to star in the movie version of Anne Frank, Audrey simply couldn't bear the idea. Perhaps she was terrified of facing those old ghosts, perhaps she was afraid of her Mother's past being revealed. Maybe it was everything. Either way, those experiences drove Audrey to work with UNICEF and other organizations right up until her death. What gives this book it's importance is how we see how much the war affected even a child of privilege and how even fame and wealth couldn't erase the wounds that the war inflicted on her. Even if you're not interested in Aubrey Hepburn at all, I would encourage you to read this book for a view of war to the people caught up in the middle of it, even if they're not on the battlefields directly. Dutch Girl: Audrey Hepburn and World War II by Robert Matzen gets an A.
Hello comrades and non-comrades. So, you know how I said that Trump is definitely a fascist back there a few paragraphs ago? Last week his campaign put out 88 ads on Facebook, the first sentences of which were 14 words long. These are long established Neonazi dog-whistles. The 88 for HH or Heil Hitler; 14 words for "We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.". Not only that, but the ads were a call to action against the political left and progressive Liberals, and featured the inverted red triangle the Nazis used to denote political prisoners in the concentration camps.
If you are already doing things to fight fascism, welcome to the struggle comrades! Remember to take the time to take care of yourself. If not, get up and do something. Donate money if you've got it, better yet join and be active in an org. I’ve put some links down below, the first three are socialist orgs (because that’s the ocean I swim in), the fourth is basically a massive list of Liberal activist orgs. As usual, we’re gonna need support to get our people out of jail (especially after the RNC…) so I also have the list of bail funds. This also serves as a reminder that Black Lives Matter, Trans Lives Matter, that protests against police brutality are still ongoing, and the city of Minneapolis just voted to abolish its fascistic police department.
And as usual comrades, this book review series runs off Patreon. Please consider supporting it so that Frigid can finally buy the moveable archive stacks we all know he wants. Seriously, you should see his room. He needs them.
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