Dutch Girl - Robert Matzen (Goodknight Books - Apr 2019)

Twenty-five years after her passing, Audrey Hepburn remains the most beloved of all Hollywood stars, known as much for her role as UNICEF ambassador as for films like Roman Holiday and Breakfast at Tiffany's. Several biographies have chronicled her stardom, but none has covered her intense experiences through five years of Nazi occupation in the Netherlands. According to her son, Luca Dotti, "The war made my mother who she was."
 
Audrey Hepburn's war included participation in the Dutch Resistance, working as a doctor's assistant during the "Bridge Too Far" battle of Arnhem, the brutal execution of her uncle, and the ordeal of the Hunger Winter of 1944. She also had to contend with the fact that her father was a Nazi agent and her mother was pro-Nazi for the first two years of the occupation. But the war years also brought triumphs as Audrey became Arnhem's most famous young ballerina.
 
Audrey's own reminiscences, new interviews with people who knew her in the war, wartime diaries, and research in classified Dutch archives shed light on the riveting, untold story of Audrey Hepburn under fire in World War II. Also included is a section of color and black-and-white photos. Many of these images are from Audrey's personal collection and are published here for the first time.
 
Terrific look at the events that impacted Audrey Hepburn all of her life and made her the incredible woman she was. I have been a huge fan of Audrey Hepburn since I was a little girl and watched movies like Roman Holiday and My Fair Lady. As an adult, I was familiar with her work as an ambassador for UNICEF and her efforts to help the children of war-torn countries. But I had no idea about the tumultuous years in the Nazi-occupied Netherlands.
 
The book got off to a slightly slow start for me as the first few chapters were spent talking about her parents. Audrey was born to an English father and a Dutch mother and spent much of her first few years shuttled off to her grandparents while her parents traveled. Both were German sympathizers, with Audrey's mother Ella finding Hitler to be a charming and charismatic man. While Ella eventually saw the error of her ways, Audrey's father spent most of the war imprisoned as a traitor in England. The book's pace picked up as Audrey took a more central place in the narrative.
 
Audrey, her mother, and two brothers moved to Arnhem to be closer to Ella's parents and other relatives. Audrey, who dreamed of becoming a ballerina, began lessons there. She was never a studious child, but dance spoke to her soul, and she would practice for hours. Life progressed calmly until Hitler invaded Poland, and the war began in earnest. Ella was sure that Hitler would leave the Netherlands alone, as the Germans had ignored them during the First World War. That belief came to a screeching halt in May 1940, when Germany took the country in just five days. Even then, they were treated well at first.
 
But slowly, things began to change. Audrey's Jewish friends and neighbors disappeared. She recalled seeing train cars full of people headed east, a sight that stayed with her all of her life. As the months went on and the Germans cracked down on the freedoms of the Dutch people and the news of the war grew worse, Audrey lost herself in dance whenever possible. As a young teen, she participated in performances attended by their German occupiers, but later she danced to raise money for the Dutch Resistance forces.
 
Her life was forever changed when her beloved Uncle Otto was taken as one of many hostages held to force the cooperation of the locals. When Resistance fighters took action against the occupiers, the Germans selected five hostages for execution. Uncle Otto was one of them. As the war dragged on, life in Arnhem became more difficult. Then came the days of "A Bridge Too Far" and the battle that all but destroyed the town. With no other choice, the family relocated to nearby Velp and tried to pick up the pieces.
 
But the war wasn't going well for the Germans, and the advancing Allied armies created new problems. The descriptions of the constant shelling, strafing runs by Allied fighters, and German reprisals were vivid. Audrey danced when she could, taught dance to children to escape the nightmares, and spent a lot of time helping the local doctor treat the injured. She also got involved in delivering messages and papers for the Resistance. Life went from bad to worse in the winter of 1944-1945. Rail strikes meant that no food was coming into the country; there was no coal or wood for heat. This was known as the Hunger Winter when many people starved to death and had a tremendous impact on Audrey for the rest of her life.
 
Throughout the book, there are sections from Audrey's adult life as they relate to her experiences during the war. She was a very private person and rarely talked about those experiences. I found it especially interesting that she never saw herself as beautiful or talented and never intended to become an actress. Her heart was always with dance.
 
There was an especially intriguing section that paralleled the lives of Audrey and Anne Frank. They were born just six weeks apart and lived only 60 miles from each other. Years later, Audrey was given Anne's diary to read and was gutted by the similarities felt by the two. She later met Otto Frank, Anne's father, who asked her to portray Anne in a movie. But Audrey couldn't do it.
 
The book dips a little into Audrey's life as an actress, but mainly to show the war years' impact on her. Other people's opinions of her mattered very little, and she lived her later life the way she wanted to. Her four years working for the world's children were some of her most satisfying and yet hardest, especially her trip to Somalia.
 
The book opened with a foreword from her younger son, Luca, who learned things he never knew about his mother from this book. This quote from him stuck with me the most:   "When my mother wanted to teach me a lesson about life, she never used stories about her career. She always told stories about the war. The war was very, very important to her. It made her who she was." - Luca Dotti, youngest son of Audrey Hepburn. 
 
One of the reasons this book impacted me is that, as Americans, we don't get much in the way of in-depth World War Two education. I've lived in Germany for the past five years, and the effects of that war are well-documented. I've been to many WW2 museums here in Europe, and each one has been an eye-opening experience. One of the best was the Dutch Resistance Museum in Amsterdam.