Dutch Girl

by Robert Matzen

  The war had created a bewildering situation for the van Heemstras. Of course Meisje supported her husband, who had worked for the royal family, including the queen, and was one hundred percent pro-Oranje. Ella’s cousin Ernestine Johanna, Baroness van Heemstra, was a notorious Resistance fighter who had already been arrested and imprisoned by the Gestapo. But Schelte van Heemstra, cousin to Ella’s side of the family, remained Queen’s Commissioner of Gelderland in Arnhem and was suspected of cooperating with the NSB—although in reality he was trying to do anything but. And Ella was the most pro-German of all, which caused unrest within the family.

  At the beginning of November, Ella put the finishing touches on eighteenth-century period costumes for a series of scenes from Mozart’s life that would be performed on stage by Ella, a group of her male and female society friends, and Ian and Audrey. The string quartet would sit beside the actors and play German-approved music. For the occasion, Alex planned to make the trip east from the town of Rhenen where he lived in hiding as what was now called an onderduiker. Unlike the Wehrmachtheim, which served only the German military, the Schouwburg welcomed all of Arnhem and the surrounding area to attend performances.

  The evening began with Franz Joseph Haydn’s Quartet in G as the actors depicted boy Mozart’s visit to Prince Esterhazy. To the music of Mozart’s K.V. 575 in D and K.V. 387 in G, Ella staged a scene of Mozart as guest at a foreign embassy garden party. For the final piece, Beethoven and other musicians were shown gathering a year after Mozart’s death to salute their friend and inspiration.

  Said Louis Couturier, “At this commemoration, one of the cleanest quartets of Mozart was played. Halfway through, the scene was darkened and with the actors hidden from view, only the four playing remained visible. The attention of the audience went to only players and their play. Then the background began to flash and only Mozart’s music spoke.”

  Couturier went on to say, “The scenes made a very special impression. Mozart’s music does not need a dramatic effect to make an impression; it has an inner power that destroys all appearance. Yet it is sometimes strange to…think back to a time when the creator of so much immortal beauty belonged to the living. All the more so if this is done in such a very artistic and indulgent way, as yesterday led by Baroness van Heemstra.”

  It was an evening that also featured violin solos by Maestro Draaisma and choreography by Mistress Marova in what was for Ella a crowning achievement and wonderful way to close out the cultural year. That same evening Alex and his girlfriend, Miepje, announced they were engaged to be married.

  Four weeks after Ella’s grand event, both German and free Dutch sources flashed bulletins that the imperial Japanese had staged a sneak air attack on the American fleet at Pearl Harbor. How the Americans had managed to stay out of the war this long was a mystery, but many Dutch grumbled that they knew exactly how the Americans felt—the Netherlands had fallen in an attack just as cowardly.

  On the evening of 11 December, Arnhem heard news that the Americans had declared war on Germany, as they had three days earlier on Japan. Hitler reacted with a furious speech in the Reichstag in Berlin, aiming his venom directly at U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt. Hitler blamed a failed New Deal, the American plan to end the Great Depression, as the real reason for war with Germany. “First he incites war,” railed Hitler, “then falsifies the causes, then odiously wraps himself in a cloak of Christian hypocrisy and slowly but surely leads mankind to war.” Thunderous applause inside the Reichstag echoed across the German empire in a radio broadcast that electrified the air.

  As Christmas arrived, there were so many reasons for Ella to be optimistic about the Germans. Their armies had all but conquered Russia and were now mere miles from Moscow. In Arnhem Ella’s endlessly busy and productive social life had kept the entire family safe. Yes, the rationing was harsh, but food that couldn’t be obtained with a ration coupon due to spot shortages in the shops could be secured via the black market. Yes, it had been a shock to have to register herself and her children for the trifold identification card, the Ausweis, which contained name, birth date, address, photo, and fingerprints. Each card was officially numbered, signed, and countersigned. It was logical that the Germans wanted to know who was in the country and why. So many things the Germans did made sense, and for that reason many people in Arnhem continued to be willing to give the occupiers a chance. It was also logical to believe that restrictions would soon be eased as the economic and political systems in the Netherlands were aligned with those of Germany and as the resources of the Soviet Union began pouring into the Reich. All the citizens of Arnhem had to do was wait a little longer.

  But all was not well. By now, hunger had been gnawing at the bellies of the Dutch, both adults and children. And Otto was out at the Paleis de Justitie, which cast a pall on the holidays. This in particular became an ominous sign for a year to come, 1942, that would see unspeakable horror for the Netherlands and for all the van Heemstras.

  9

  Born for the Spotlight

  “My mother, I think, has brought me up as well as any mother ever does,” said Audrey. “I think she did a wonderful job, with three children, and I don’t feel she was over-strict or that we were spoiled. She brought us up in a very natural, healthy way.”

  Ella grew up at the end of a time of wealth for the van Heemstras. Part of her youth was spent with her siblings at the magnificent estate Huis Doorn near Utrecht. While her older sisters, Meisje and Geraldine, reflected the ideals of their mother the baroness, Ella found herself trapped between the rigid Victorian world and a future she imagined for herself in exotic locations far from her stodgy elders. She longed for more affection, more spontaneity, even more silliness in her own family, and wrote in her unpublished novel about listening “enviously to other children who went for walks and for treats with their parents, who called them ‘darling’ and ‘sweetiepuss.’” Unfortunately, she wrote, her own family “consider it unwise to use endearments when speaking to their children; it might be too weakening or too gratifying to a young mind. Warmth does not go well with [Dutch] austerity.” For all she would surmount in life, she found herself unable to break through and offer physical affection to her own daughter—the one thing Ella herself had craved.

  It was one contradiction among many. From the earliest age, Ella had been the black sheep among the van Heemstra daughters. Three had been produced in quick succession, and from the older Meisje and Geraldine she earned the nickname “barbed wire Ella” for her frank opinions. She also possessed a rich imagination that led her to mischief, like the time at age eight she packed herself in the dumb waiter and sent herself one floor down, only to become stuck. Unsticking her required the amused wait staff—her parents, the baron and baroness, were not amused. And it was Ella and only Ella who by age ten had begun crossing herself like a Catholic because she found the Roman Catholics with their icons, relics, and traditions much more interesting than the boring old Calvinists of her own family. Her actions flabbergasted the baron.

  Ella had emerged into adulthood as a Christian Scientist who saw the physical and spiritual worlds as much more connected than the Protestants allowed. But above even that she remained a stifled performer born for the spotlight, for some stage in some city, for romance and accolades, for bouquets and applause. Unfortunately, Ella had also been born into the Frisian aristocracy of 1900 and forbidden as a teenager by her father to set foot anywhere near a stage. She dreamed of becoming a ballerina or a poetess; she stated at one point that she wanted “more than anything else to be English, slim, and an actress.”

  “Ella was the prima donna, absolutely,” said her grandson, Luca Dotti. “She was the frustrated prima donna, born a century too soon.”

  Her friend Alfred Heinekin III of the brewery family described her as “a born actress, very dramatic, highly emotional, with a great sense of fun.”

  But the baron was unrelenting. “Whatever you do,” he told his daughter during her adolescence, “don’t a
ssociate with actors and actresses. You’d disgrace the family.”

  Ella could rebel occasionally when separated from her father by countries or bodies of water. Notably, this occurred in 1935 when she wrote the public pronouncements on behalf of the British Union of Fascists. In general she had acquiesced to his wishes and by age forty was using her natural capabilities in the public spotlight only on rare, “acceptable” occasions, such as the benefit for war relief, when she read her poetry, and the dinner for the Sadler’s Wells touring company, when she served as hostess and delivered a speech in two languages, and the Mozart celebration when she served as more or less a mannequin on a stage.

  But Audrey—that was a different story. Ella determined that her own daughter would not be forbidden; she would be encouraged, funded, and promoted. So yes, Ella lived the life of a stage mother, unashamedly so, and yes, Ella put Audrey up on the stage at the Schouwburg in the Mozart tableau.

  The family history of one of Audrey’s schoolmates, Koosje Heineman, indicates that Audrey began the fall term at the Middelbare Meisjes School, the girls’ college, or secondary school, in Arnhem, a building that sat above the Tamboersbosje school on the hill above the Arnhem train station. Some months later, however, the MMS building was confiscated by the Germans, and the girls had to move to other facilities. Around this time, early 1942, Ella was sending letters of introduction on her daughter’s behalf along with clippings from the Courant to various well-placed artists around the Netherlands. Typical of these was a letter to Amsterdam cabaret artist Chiel de Boer, founder of the Cabaret De Stal. The letter read in part: “My twelve-year-old daughter is training to become a professional ballerina. She already has some very special dance compositions of her own, and she seems to have a great talent. Maybe she will perform for you…in the near future!”

  A young teacher at the Dansschool, Carel Johan Wensink, said, “Haar moeder had haar op de tanden,” which translates to, “Her mother had hair on the teeth,” a Dutch expression meaning Ella had a sharp tongue. Wensink played piano at Audrey’s dance lessons and described seeing Ella always in the wings at public performances and perpetually shoving her daughter onto some stage or other.

  For the twelve year old displaced from public school, there was now dance and only dance. It wasn’t just her mother’s obsession, it was her own as well and her driving ambition in an increasingly harsh, colorless Arnhem. “I wanted to dance solo roles,” she said. “I desperately wanted to do these roles because they would allow me to express myself. I couldn’t express myself while conforming to a line of twelve girls. I didn’t want to conform. I was going to hit my mark.”

  Many young ballerinas striving to make dance their careers developed such tunnel vision, as related by Sadler’s Wells corps de ballet dancer Annabel Farjeon: “Being so highly trained in one narrow field…, dancers are seldom abashed to confess ignorance of the more elementary facts of science, politics, history, or even other forms of art. Physical demands segregate dancers more than those in most professions, for all morning and afternoon they are generally rehearsing or taking daily class….”

  “I had always been sensitive to music,” said Audrey. “It makes me want to move.” Along with the instinct needed for dance came a drive and self-discipline uncommon in must humans. “Ballet is the most completely exhausting thing I’ve ever done,” she said of the relentless grind of daily lessons, and yet she pushed on, stubborn and dedicated despite the war and every other obstacle.

  “People don’t realize that during a war of this kind, nothing basically changes inside of you,” she said. “Conditions and habits change but the human doesn’t. If you wanted to be a dancer before, you want to be one just as much despite the war.”

  Audrey shared the trait of all serious dancers—the total commitment to craft. Said Margot Fonteyn: “The necessity of going to class is not only healthy in itself—for the amount of compulsory exercise is far more than anyone would do voluntarily, just to keep fit—it is also therapeutic in times of emotional stress. No matter how often one attends a ballet class, one must still maintain a particular degree of concentration, for each class is different from all others, and the concentrating for an hour or more on the manipulation of one’s limbs relieves and refreshes a mind that may be over-engrossed in emotional problems.”

  Every day the Dutch girl walked fifteen minutes from the apartment to the school, took her lessons, and walked home. Around her, the winter of 1942 was brutal, as indicated by journalist Steven Jansen of the nearby town of Velp. Jansen described a woman walking through town holding a basket. As she moved along the street, she would bend over, pick something up, and place it in the basket, then walk further studying the pavement and repeating the process. “She follows the trail of a coal truck,” revealed Jansen. “All chips of anthracite that fall from the truck she carefully picks up because the coal assignment is not large and the winter is severe. Worse than 1941, much worse than 1940, and in fact the worst in 153 years. Almost eight weeks the IJssel has been frozen over. Sixty-five days the temperature was under zero [Celsius].”

  By this point in the war, food rations were harsh, with all fats missing from Dutch diets. As a result, the cold penetrated more easily and chilled the marrow of the bones. Seyss-Inquart had pledged the previous October “that we here in Holland will get through the winter all right.”

  But by February the Wehrmacht had requisitioned the coal supply to keep trains running hundreds and thousands of miles to the Eastern front, where the situation was dire. Those schools in Arnhem that had managed to remain open in previous winters now closed down because they couldn’t be heated. Dutch families were given enough coal to heat just one room per household.

  The Germans were becoming ever more authoritarian, introducing new measures, rules, regulations, and restrictions. They no longer treated the Dutch as Aryan cousins; no longer was there an effort to win Dutch hearts. The Dutch didn’t seem to be willing to walk hand in hand with the Germans, so they would be dragged along instead. In 1942 a Dutch Kultuurkamer, or Culture Chamber, was organized to represent musicians, writers, actors for the stage and screen, and the press. “Each profession was to have its own guild,” wrote Dutch historian Louis de Jong, “but all guilds were to belong to the Chamber whose prime duty was described as the ‘furtherance of Holland’s culture in the light of its responsibility toward the Commonwealth of Peoples.’”

  As Seyss-Inquart phrased it, “With the prohibition of the political parties, most of the organizations of the free professions became impossible, since right down to the chess players’ club everything in the Netherlands was organized on a political basis.”

  The arts were being Nazified, including the Arnhem Symphony Orchestra and the Muziekschool, where Draaisma was already a confirmed member of the NSB, if only to keep his male students from being sent to Germany as laborers or conscripts. The move to politicize the orchestra, which included Ella’s string quartet, caused internal dissension when the musicians were forced to fill out application cards to join the Chamber or be barred from further study and public performance. Draaisma and Ella didn’t get along anyway—they detested each other and quarreled often. In general, Ella was experiencing disillusionment about the Nazis after her brother-in-law, Otto, had been sacked from the judicial system. It wasn’t only that; the van Heemstras were suffering a second hard winter, dwindling coal and fuel supplies, and increasing regulations in all aspects of life, including now the arts. The Kultuurkamer was the last straw for Ella, who now watched as musicians she knew and respected were forced out of the orchestra because they were Jewish and couldn’t obtain a registration card. Some had even become onderduikers. As a dancer, Audrey was spared from applying to join the Chamber only because of her young age at thirteen. But Marova joined, as did Draaisma.

  Ella watched as the Nazi vise closed on the Jews of Arnhem. Back in 1935 when she had run with the Mitford pack, it was easy for Diana Mitford to mouth the words of Oswald Mosley, who said that if the
Jews didn’t like their treatment in Europe, they could simply leave. Ella, Michael Burn, the Mitford sisters—all had been so easily seduced back then, so enamored of the promise of a revitalized Germany. Seven years later, with the streets of Arnhem stained by Jewish blood from beatings at the hands of roving Nazi gangs, reality hit Ella full force. Nazism had been twisted into something monstrous. Or had it been a lie all along?

  Finally, spring arrived to break the historic winter, and with the thaw came turmoil in the family. The baron had been bickering with his landlady, Mevrouw Mia Schulte van Zegwaart, over the rent for his rooms at Zijpendaal. The quarrel erupted into open conflict, and he, Meisje, and Otto packed up their belongings at the beginning of May, with plans that by 15 May they would be vacated from de Zijp and the beautiful Sonsbeek grounds with its deer, cats, and ducks where Audrey could count many happy memories. Opa, Tante, and Oom would move three miles east to a villa the baron found that had been bequeathed to the Reformed Church by its late owner and was available for rent. The villa was located in the next town over, Velp.