10. Death Candidate
The story of Otto, Count van Limburg Stirum, is important to the van Heemstras and also to Dutch history. This wasn’t some poor anonymous soul a grainy newsreel showed being shot by the Nazis; this was a member of Audrey’s immediate family with whom she had lived in Arnhem. He was also among the first five civilians to be executed in all of the Netherlands since the occupation began. Otto’s story is fascinating and heartbreaking, and Audrey mentioned his death so often, always positioning it as the most shocking thing that she experienced in the war. For these reasons I felt the need to explore Otto’s situation. Luckily my Dutch researcher, Maddie van Leenders, found his diary at NIOD and painstakingly translated it from archaic, handwritten Dutch to English. This became my primary source, with excellent support from the diary of Robert Peereboom, which was published in 1945 as Gijzelaars in Gestel. I made site visits to the former Kleine Seminary Beekvliet in Sint-Michielsgestel. The magnificent front portion of the complex remains, while the many wings added on behind have been demolished. Maddie and I were able to explore the building inside and out, and we also visited the place of execution near Tilburg, which gave authenticity to the descriptions of Otto’s last twenty-four hours. My good fortune continued on the Tilburg visit as Maddie connected me with the owner of the land containing the execution site, now a national monument. There, I was able to touch replicas of the five poles planted in the ground, and pay my respects at the graves of the count and Baron Schimmelpenninck. An interview with the landowner contradicted some of the information found in an article titled “Vijf zwarte palen herinneren aan oorlogsdrama” (Five black poles remind of war drama) by Pierre van Beek, which appeared in Het Nieuwsblad van het Zuiden on 12 August 1975. This was the first documentation of the executions that I found, and I worked backward from there to fill in (and correct) the story from its beginning with Otto’s arrest and continuing past the horrible morning of 15 August 1942.
11. Paranoid
This chapter was another gamble because once again the focus is not Audrey. But the conclusion of the previous chapter was so shocking and made so little sense to any rational mind that telling the back story of what had gone on outside Otto’s knowledge was essential to giving perspective to the episode. Facts were found in de Jong’s World War II narrative, including the historical perspective on the Driemanschap and Rutger Jan Schimmelpenninck. It begs the question: If Queen Wilhelmina had not been visiting the United States at this time and if she had not addressed Congress, would Count van Limburg Stirum and Baron Schimmelpenninck have been chosen for execution?
During the Nuremberg trials, Seyss-Inquart said on Monday, 10 June 1946: “I can take full and absolute responsibility for what happened in the hostage camp in St. Michielsgestel. It was not a hostage camp in the actual sense of the word: I took Dutchmen into custody only when they had shown themselves to be active in Resistance movements. The camp at St. Michielsgestel was not a prison. I visited it. The inmates of the camp played golf. They were given leave, in the case of urgent family affairs or business matters. Not a single one of them was ever shot. I think the majority of the present Dutch Ministers were at St. Michielsgestel. It was a sort of protective custody to temporarily hinder them from continuing their anti-German activities.” (Nuremberg Trial Proceedings Vol. 15, 151st day, Monday, 10 June 1946.)
But after reading about Otto’s experiences, we all know better. Seyss-Inquart was a rat and not forthcoming on the topic of the executions of “the five.” It was entirely fitting that the man responsible for the deaths of Otto and thousands of others would be hanged in Nuremberg on 16 October 1946 at the age of 54.
The owner of the property that includes the execution site, a man of about 80, was once the employer of Marinus van Heerebeek, and he heard the story of the morning of execution from van Heerebeek personally. Nowhere has this account been told accurately until now—how van Heerebeek saw Green Police, heard the volley in the woods, and later put two and two together based on the shocking news that Dutch civilians had been executed.
Some of Meisje’s papers, including the letters quoted, were found in the Gelders Archief.
12. The Secret
Audrey’s quote about Otto appeared in “Somalia: The Silent Children.” She made the statement about pain and loss to Shara Fryer of KTRK-TV in Houston on 21 March 1990 in connection with the Anne Frank tour. The reasoning for Ella’s move with Audrey from Arnhem to Velp was built on circumstantial evidence. The issue of Oranjekrant listing Baroness van Heemstra as “Gestapo” is filed at the Nationaal Archief in The Hague. Research in the Netherlands revealed the importance of the van Pallandts of Castle Rozendaal to the van Heemstras. They were families allied by marriage for a century and by titled status for much longer. Ella’s quote about the titled class appeared in her untitled autobiographical novel. Audrey’s quote about growing up with older people was found in Woodward. The Jansen diary became more important once Ella and Audrey moved to Velp since he was writing about conditions in the village from a perspective very near the Villa Beukenhof. Information about Velp itself and about the Deelen Air Base is the result of visiting both. I spent a great deal of time walking the streets of Velp, a village that hasn’t changed much since the war except for destruction caused during the war. The Courant covered the February 1943 Dansschool performances at the Schouwburg. An interview with Dick Mantel in his home on Rozendaalselaan in Velp—he lived across the street from the Beukenhof—provided wonderful detail about life in the village, and so close to the van Heemstras, during the occupation.
Audrey’s negative comments revealing a low self-opinion of her looks show up like a rash through many interviews over many decades. The quote used here was found in a syndicated piece from September 1953 coinciding with the release of Roman Holiday, and the quote about her shoulders was contained in the raw transcript of her interview with Hedda Hopper of 11 September 1953, which is in the Hopper papers at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Margaret Herrick Library.
Several newspapers carried the announcement of the marriage of Alex Quarles van Ufford to Maria Margarethe Monné in June 1943. Information about the German roundup of workers was found in Jansen, and the story about the baron’s visits to the Mantel home was provided by Dick Mantel. Audrey talked about the capture of Ian often; this quote appeared in the December 1953 issue of Screenland magazine. As for her fierce resistance to fielding questions that were too personal, in addition to the October 1955 issue of Cosmopolitan, quotes were found in the June 1954 issue of McCall’s, the August 1962 issue of Good Housekeeping, and Glenn Plaskin’s syndicated May 1991 newspaper feature, “She Hardly Goes Lightly Through Life.” Clearly, she put up a wall at the beginning of her public life to keep reporters from asking questions about certain aspects of life, including or especially the war.
13. Soul Sister
Thanks to Audrey’s 1990 collaboration with composer and conductor Michael Tilson Thomas to bring “From the Diary of Anne Frank” to American audiences in four cities, Audrey spoke a great deal about the spiritual connection she felt toward the “other Dutch girl.” The quote about first reading the Het Achterhuis manuscript appeared in Walker. The quote about Uncle Otto appeared in an extensive interview and writeup by Lesley Garner for the 26 May 1991 Sunday Telegraph. The quote about Audrey as soul sister and being happy to read her words appeared in a syndicated newspaper article that circulated in late March 1990, including in the Journal Times of Racine, Wisconsin. An interview with the Miami Herald covered Audrey’s day with Otto and Elfriede Frank.
Audrey was always talking about her fear of public speaking, including on this tour when she mentioned it in New York City to Bridget Foley of the Fairchild News Service. Michael Tilson Thomas’s quote about Audrey’s way of reading the words of Anne Frank was the first and most widely printed comment in press accompanying the tour from city to city. Finally, my visit to the Anne Frank House and Museum in Amsterdam helped greatly in the writing of this chap
ter.
14. Just Dutchmen
Background on the Jewish situation in the Netherlands was courtesy of the report commissioned in 1950 by the Rijksinstituut voor Oorlogs-documentatie (the Netherlands State Institute for War Documentation). This report, which was estimated for completion in 1952, took fifteen years to come to fruition because of the complexity involved in documenting the Holocaust as it occurred in the Netherlands. Dr. Loe de Jong was the director of this organization and the primary advocate for this report, which was written by Dr. Jacob Presser. I am indebted to both men for their superb work.
Audrey spoke often and eloquently about what she witnessed regarding the Jews in Arnhem from 1941–43. Some of her quotes used here were found in Walker and Woodward. She also spoke about the matter in Vogue in 1971 and on her 1990 Donahue appearance.
The onderduiker situation in Velp—those who had gone into hiding for one reason or another—was covered by Gety Hengeveld-de Jong and the Stichting Velp voor Oranje (Velp for Oranje Foundation) in Verborgen in Velp. This terrific volume, published in 2013, documented dozens of accounts of Velpenaren risking their lives to hide Jews who had been marked for death by the Nazis.
15. Warmest Praise
Audrey’s quote about the regimentation of dance was found in the typed transcript of her 1953 interview with Hedda Hopper. Facts about the establishment of Seyss-Inquart and his government in Velp in 1943 were revealed in interviews on the ground in Velp. Steven Jansen described the confiscation of homes in his diary. Detail about Fliegerhorst Deelen resulted from my site visits to the base museum and Diogenes command bunker accompanied by historian Johan Vermeulen, with additional information found in Duits Deelen by Ineke Beltman. The bombing of Castle Rozendaal was covered in the Omroep Gelderland article “Bommen op Kasteel Rozendaal,” which was published on the seventy-fourth anniversary of the incident. A letter from David Heringa to author Barry Paris describing Ella’s Christian Science activities was found in the Paris papers at the University of Pittsburgh. Audrey spoke about the increasing difficulties of dancing during the war and about the Kultuurkamer, in the October 1956 issue of Dance magazine. The 8 January performance of the dansavond and its many encores were covered in the Arnhemsche Courant. My understanding of the Eighth Air Force bombing missions of Big Week resulted from my core research conducted for the book Mission: Jimmy Stewart and the Fight for Europe.
Another of the untold stories in this book concerns the Resistance in Velp as led by its physicians based in the Ziekenhuis. Information on this topic was collected during a series of interviews with Velpenaren, including Clan and Annemarth Visser ’t Hooft, daughters of huisarts Dr. Hendrik Visser ’t Hooft; Ben van Griethuysen, son of radiologist Dr. Bernhard van Griethuysen; and Rosemarie Kamphuisen—her family members were patients of Dr. Visser ’t Hooft. A great deal of supporting information was found in Verborgen in Velp and in the 1992 commemorative volume, 100 Jaar Ziekenhuis Velp by J.P. Kooger.
To show how an entire project can turn on a dime, it was an off-handed comment by Clan about her father, who said often with pride that Audrey had worked as a volunteer for him, that became a key to everything about the Dutch girl in the latter half of the war. Suddenly, so many of the events she had described, her participation in events that seemed far-fetched to some, had a context because she was in direct contact day-to-day with the L.O. Resistance leader in the entire area—and a very charismatic leader at that, a man of action who could inspire action in others.
The quote by Marova about Audrey’s physical condition was found in Paris. The quote wherein Audrey stated that the town carpenter put up a barre for her appeared in Dance magazine, October 1956. However, this statement has been misinterpreted. The “village carpenter” didn’t put a barre in Villa Beukenhof. He installed it in one of the rooms of the N.H.V. at Stationsstraat 5 in Velp. This was a Reformed Church utility building that served as a local meeting place and it was here that Audrey conducted dance lessons for village children. The quote about her former students staying in touch also appeared in Dance magazine.
16. Black Evenings
Audrey spoke about the food shortages many times, including in The Guardian of London on 29 March 1988. The Velpsche Ziekenhuis staff was discussed in Verborgen in Velp. Village resident Rosemarie Kamphuisen described Drs. Visser ’t Hooft and van der Willigen in conversations with me in Velp and via email. The various Dutch Resistance groups at work in the Netherlands were described by CIA historian Stewart W. Bentley, Jr. in his book Orange Blood, Silver Wings. The example of Visser ’t Hooft’s run-ins with the Nazi police and tending of Seyss-Inquart were provided in interviews with Clan Visser ’t Hooft.
Early in her career, Audrey spoke often of dancing in the zwarte avonden. She mentioned it as early as 13 January 1952 in an interview published in the Daily Oklahoman, and again in a Modern Screen November 1953 interview. As for the Rotterdamsche Bank being turned into a notorious SD torture facility, Jansen mentioned it on multiple occasions, and Audrey touched on it in a 1991 televised interview on CNN’s Larry King Live. The experiences of various clergy in Velp were covered both by Jansen and by Hengeveld-de Jong.
Audrey’s comment to Sidney Fields was, “In between running around with food for the pilots and anti-Nazi literature we gave what were called ‘Black Performances,’ dancing in private houses to raise money for the Underground.” True to her mother’s lifelong teaching that one must never call attention to oneself, and Audrey’s belief that she should never use the war for publicity purposes, she never revealed more about how she helped pilots during the most critical period of the Eighth Air Force bombing campaign of the Reich in 1944.
Her adventure with the English-speaking soldier in the forest was told first by Anita Loos through a description that Loos herself called “melodramatic” in a 1954 article in The American Weekly. In this original version, the soldier was an “English paratrooper” and Audrey led him to a house where he could wash up before turning himself in to the Nazis. “Before they parted,” wrote Loos, “the young man gave Audrey his only possession of value, a silver locket with the Lord’s Prayer engraved on it.”
The story as written by Loos makes no sense on many levels. English paratroopers weren’t landing near Velp one at a time. During Operation Market Garden 10,000 landed many kilometers west of Velp, and on that occasion, for weeks afterward it was far too dangerous for a girl to be leaving home to go anywhere, let alone the forest. Nor were soldiers “turning themselves in” to the Nazis after a refreshing bath and shave. They were desperate to avoid capture. On the other hand, American and British airmen were shot down and seen floating to earth on parachutes every day, and this one was likely a downed fighter-pilot because they were the only British fliers in the air during the day, escorting American bombers across the Netherlands.
Annemarth Visser ’t Hooft told me of the German fortified camp, known to the Dutch as “het moffendorp,” and of the fact that civilians were forbidden to be anywhere near it.
17. Het Vaderland
Audrey’s quote about having a good cry appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer in an article entitled “Breakfast at UNICEF” on 13 May 1990. The attacks on Deelen were described in Beltman’s Duits Deelen and Jansen mentioned the curious events—without having any context for them. The mass, unorganized retreat up through Arnhem from the Belgian border has been described by many authors, including Cornelius Ryan in A Bridge Too Far, and Robert Kershaw in A Street in Arnhem. Jansen described the German hordes descending on Velp’s hotels, shops, and restaurants. Audrey’s description of herself as “awfully young” appeared in the 5 August 1985 Washington Post. Dutch researcher Maddie van Leenders spotted Ella’s classified ad in Het Vaderland, and the rationale for Ella placing it was based on a contextual analysis of the situation, and on Luca Dotti’s descriptions of his grandmother’s sensibilities.
18. If, If, If
Then there were the battered German commanding officers, Model and Bittrich. There were other
s, too, but I felt I had to boil the story down to its elements. The Germans needed someplace to collect themselves and lick their wounds after brutal fighting around Normandy and then across France. Arnhem, Audrey’s city, became doomed when Model moved into the Tafelberg in Oosterbeek and ordered his troops to regroup practically in the laps of the van Heemstras. Their decision opened up Pandora’s Box for everyone in Gelderland. How many deaths resulted? How much privation? The ripples would go on and on for decades and, I maintain, result ultimately in the tragic early death of Audrey Hepburn.
19. The Hun on the Run
I saw no way around pausing to ground the reader in Market Garden, one of the most romanticized battles of World War II, and an event that changed millions of lives, including that of Audrey Hepburn. No fan of the great actress and international personality would stop to think that the course of Audrey’s life was directly connected to the fact that the Soviet army would get to Berlin before the British and Americans. This is history at its most compelling and worth a few pages to set up the Allied plan to capture the eastern part of the Netherlands.
20. The Netherlands in Five Days
Since the purpose of this tour was war relief, and the Dutch girl was back home and visiting Oosterbeek and Arnhem, I saw an opportunity to “flash forward” to look at Audrey just nine years after she had experienced the liberation. At this point she had already won an Oscar for Roman Holiday and a Tony for the Broadway run of Ondine. Sabrina was still doing smash worldwide business months after its U.S. release.
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