I intentionally omitted a story that appeared in the 14 September 2010 New York Times obituary of writer Michael “Micky” Burn. The story claims the following: Micky Burn was part of the 269-man commando unit that took part in the destruction of the German-held port of St. Nazaire, France, which was the only dry dock on the French coast that could service German battleships. In what was known as Operation Chariot, a British battleship loaded with explosives rammed the dry dock, and the commandos spilled out and destroyed the remainder of the facility, making the daring mission a success even though most of the raiders were killed or captured—Micky Burn among them. Burn was sent to the German prison facility at Colditz Castle in Germany. Soon after the 28 March 1942 battle, Baroness van Heemstra attended the German cinema in Arnhem and saw a newsreel about the incident. There on the screen for a brief moment she saw her old friend Micky Burn flashing Churchill’s V for victory sign. She tracked Burn down through his wife and Ella sent her old friend one or more Red Cross packages at Colditz.
Three years later, Burn “returned the favor after his release,” read the Times obituary and many others that appeared in major newspapers, “sending food and cigarettes to the baroness in the Netherlands, where her daughter, Audrey Hepburn-Ruston, was suffering from an infection and other ailments brought on by malnutrition. By selling the cigarettes on the black market, she was able to buy the penicillin that kept her daughter alive.” Great story! However, the 1945 portion of the time line has problems. Burn was liberated from Colditz by American forces on 15 April 1945. Ella and Audrey were liberated a day later on 16 April, at which time food arrived in Velp courtesy of the UNRRA, and cigarettes courtesy of the Canadian Polar Bears, killing the “black market” for both. Audrey’s health had already begun to improve after the March food shipments, and she always had a supply of penicillin at hand courtesy of Dr. Visser ’t Hooft. Photos taken just after liberation show a healthy-looking Audrey posing with a bouquet of flowers, so while the Burn story may contain portions of truth, it didn’t happen as presented in the obituary.
34. First Cigarette
Audrey spoke about the morning of liberation on Larry King Live. Her description of creeping up the stairs, interacting with the soldiers, and seeing the tanks roll in appeared in a syndicated feature for Gigi that appeared in the 13 January 1952 Daily Oklahoman. The description of the onderduikers was drawn from Verborgen in Velp. Steven Jansen’s diary contributed to capturing the euphoria, as did my several viewings of film footage shot on Liberation Day by Dr. Bernhard van Griethuysen, who roamed Hoofdstraat from his home in the east of the village all the way west to Rozendaalselaan. Dr. Visser ’t Hooft is clearly visible in some of the shots, but none of the van Heemstras could be identified among the hundreds of Velpenaren visible in this rare footage, which is housed in the Gelders Archief—although it’s likely both Ella and Audrey are there in the crowd.
Descriptions of retribution against collaborators are drawn from the van Griethuysen footage, as he gained access to police headquarters to capture scenes of female sympathizers undergoing head shaving. He also aimed his camera at the gauntlet through which Nazi sympathizers ran as their loyalist neighbors jeered. Information about Ella’s interrogation by Captain James was pulled from the Ella van Heemstra dossier in the Nationaal Archief at The Hague.
The bulldozing of downed trees, minesweeping, and military traffic officer are all visible in the Griethuysen film footage. Interviews with Velpenaren provided details about Liberation Day, and Audrey’s quote about watching the Allied military traffic “night and day” was found in TIME magazine’s cover story of 7 September 1953. Her statement about not staying sick for long appeared in the Daily Oklahoman.
35. Sorting
Audrey’s quote about people learning little from war was first documented by Hollywood historian James Robert Parrish in his book The Glamour Girls. Considering the climate of mistrust and accusation that ruled in the Netherlands after the war, it’s telling indeed what Audrey said of her neighbors. Whispers about Ella’s early war activities began at once and resulted in an investigation that wouldn’t conclude until early 1949. The Ella van Heemstra dossier in the Nationaal Archief presents the case against her.
Audrey spoke of the UNRRA food crates in “Somalia: The Silent Children.” Jaap Besseling told Gety Hengeveld-de Jong the story of Meisje, the Renault, and the book presented Jaap’s father.
Information about Sonia Gaskell was found in Herinneringen aan Sonia Gaskell by Rudi van Dantzig. Barry Paris stated that Ella took a job at the Royal Military Invalids Home at the border between Arnhem and Velp, and that Audrey volunteered there as well. The facility is now Museum Bronbeek, interpreting Dutch colonial history in the East Indies, and also still serves as a retirement home for “old soldiers” of the Royal Netherlands Indonesian Army.
David Heringa’s letter to Barry Paris documented Ella’s attempts to land Audrey a role in Theirs Is the Glory—and dispels recent notions that she appeared in the film.
The grim reclamation of bodies at the execution site of Otto and his companions was covered in “Vijf zwarte palen herinneren aan oorlogsdrama” (“Five black poles remind of war drama”) by Pierre van Beek, which appeared in the 12 August 1975 issue of Het Nieuwsblad van het Zuiden. The owner of the property, who was told the story of what really happened by Marinus van Heerebeek himself, corrected the 1975 newspaper narrative during my interview with him. He did not wish to have his name appear in print but said that he well remembered visits to the grave site by the Countess van Limburg Stirum and other members of the family.
36. Crossroads
Audrey discussed moving to Amsterdam with Larry King. Details about Ella’s work were found in Paris. Audrey’s quote about Sonia Gaskell appeared in the Dutch article, “Audrey Hepburn—Angel of Love,” and Annemarth Visser ’t Hooft described Gaskell in an email to me. Details about Audrey’s April 1946 return engagement at the NHV in Velp were uncovered in interviews and articles in the Velpsche Courant, and her appearance at the Hortus was mentioned in Paris.
The oddity Nederlands in Zeven Lessen is available for viewing on YouTube. One wonders what might have been going through Audrey’s mind—a mere eight years earlier she had flown into Schiphol Airport to begin life as a Dutch girl. She had survived the war and grown up, and here she was, back at Schiphol.
Information about the investigation into Ella van Heemstra was found in CABR dossier van Ella van Heemstra, Nationaal Archief Den Hag Centraal Archief Bijzondere Reichspleging; CABR 108579 PF Arnhem, dossier BV15982—Ella van Heemstra en ‘De Schandpaal, personen die werken voor en in opdracht der Gestapo’, de Oranjekrant 4 (1942).
Audrey spoke of Gaskell and the audition for Rambert in the Lesley Garner interview for the Sunday Telegraph, 26 May 1991. Her quote about needing money was found in the January 1965 Modern Screen; the quote about Rambert appeared in the 15 November 1952 issue of the Saturday Review; her assessment of how she stacked up against other dancers who hadn’t been stifled by war appeared in the October 1956 issue of Dance magazine, which also contained information about Audrey’s time under both Gaskell and Rambert.
The physical and emotional tendencies of people who had survived situations of famine were examined in Hunger: An Unnatural History, and Audrey spoke of overcompensating in the June 1959 issue of Cosmopolitan and of the jam jar in the Birmingham News, 22 February 1987. She spoke of the need to earn money on the stage in the October 1955 issue of Cosmopolitan.
37. Completely Nuts
Audrey’s quote about resilience appeared in US magazine 17 October 1988, and the quote about temptation in Cosmopolitan, October 1955. She spoke of landing the job in High Button Shoes in the January 1965 issue of Modern Screen. Her statement about how she repeated her one line over and over was quoted in Paris from a 10 January 1954 radio interview with Tex McCurdy.
Information about Ella in this time frame was taken from the confidential dossier at the Nationaal Archief; Luca Dotti provided documen
ts proving that Ella had petitioned to change her name to Ella Hepburn in May 1951. Audrey spoke about her work schedule being “completely nuts” to Hedda Hopper in the 11 September 1953 interview, in which she also mentioned making a screen test for Quo Vadis. The quote about stumbling into movies appeared in the January 1965 issue of Modern Screen.
Audrey became, if anything, even more self-effacing and introspective as she sat for a revealing interview for Parade just short of her sixtieth birthday. The resulting article was titled, “You Can’t Love Without the Fear of Losing.”
38. Peace
Audrey spoke of becoming a movie star despite the Nazis in the January 1965 issue of Modern Screen.
Sharman Apt Russell detailed the Minnesota Experiment in Hunger: An Unnatural History. Audrey talked about overcompensating with food in the October 1955 issue of Cosmopolitan and again in the June 1959 issue of Cosmopolitan. She spoke of the privacy issue in the October 1955 Cosmopolitan piece. Her quote about personal questions appeared in the July 1969 issue of McCall’s, and her statement about being green and naive in the 26 May 1991 Sunday Telegraph.
Part of the Roman Holiday interview shot after her screen test is available for viewing on YouTube. For his book Audrey Hepburn Barry Paris interviewed director Thorold Dickinson about that on-camera interview. It was clear from her responses to Dickinson’s questions in London in September 1951 that long before arriving in New York City, Audrey had sorted out what she was willing to talk about and what must remain private.
The fact that Ella had difficulty leaving England for the United States was discerned from material in the police dossier at The Hague. Given Ella’s protectiveness and need for control over her daughter, only legal entanglements would have kept her in England when Audrey was about to hit stardom in New York City.
Richard Maney discussed Audrey Hepburn in his 1957 memoir, Fanfare: The Confessions of a Press Agent. Audrey’s clever diversion of Hedda Hopper, who was about to discuss Audrey’s early life, appeared in the transcript of their 11 September 1953 interview.
The relationship between J. Edgar Hoover and Paramount Pictures dated to 1938 when Paramount bought story rights to Hoover’s first book, an anthology of true-life crime stories entitled Persons in Hiding. Paramount released four feature films based on chapters of the book, Persons in Hiding and Undercover Doctor in 1939 and Parole Fixer and Queen of the Mob in 1940. Thereafter, the egomaniacal Hoover would have a soft spot for Paramount boss Adolf Zukor and the studio that helped to cement Hoover’s name in American government and popular culture. In effect, Paramount validated bureau chief Hoover. Just fifteen years later, Paramount—possibly Zukor himself—may have been motivated by the extreme success, and potential vulnerability, of his new star Hepburn to call FBI headquarters. Somehow he must have learned of the legal entanglements and shady European past of the starlet’s mother, Baroness van Heemstra. What happened next is unknown, but the fact is that files should exist today in the FBI archives on Audrey Hepburn and Ella, Baroness van Heemstra, and neither file can be found despite the fact that experts were looking.
Audrey’s life with new husband Andrea Dotti was covered in the July 1969 issue of McCall’s. She spoke of her love of ballet to Ivo Niehe in 1988. She was quoted speaking about the offer by Joseph E. Levine to appear in the epic film version of A Bridge Too Far in the book The Audrey Hepburn Treasures. She spoke of hanging on in her marriage to Dotti in the 17 October 1988 issue of US. She described her Swiss mansion in the Richmond News Leader, 24 May 1991. Luca Dotti described his grandmother to me in a June 2018 interview.
Barry Paris presented quotes by Leonard Gershe and Anna Cataldi in his Hepburn biography, and Sean was quoted concerning his mother’s resentment for both Ella and Joseph for their fascist beliefs in Audrey Hepburn, An Elegant Spirit. Luca told me in a May 2018 phone conversation about his mother’s always using the war to teach lessons about life and described the impact of the Somalia trip in a June 2018 interview. Sean’s description of his mother’s final illness was found in the Niehe AVROTROS interview.
A 27 October 2009 abstract in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute looked at the issue of increased cancer rates for Jews who had survived World War II on the European continent versus Jews who had spent the war away from the area of conflict. Factors examined were “physical and psychological stress, such as famine and mental stress.” The report, entitled “Holocaust Survivors At Higher Risk For All Cancers,” confirmed the results of previous studies of non-Jewish wartime populations and noted, “Likely exposure, compared with non-exposure, was associated with statistically significantly increased risk for overall cancer risk (all cancers combined) for all birth cohorts, and for both sexes. The strongest associations were with breast and colorectal cancer. Earlier exposure, i.e., at a younger age, seemed to be particularly associated with increased risk of all-site cancer.”
The disease that claimed Audrey’s life, Pseudomyxoma peritonei, or PMP, saw a polyp grow on her appendix, resulting in what the U.S. Library of Medicine at the National Institutes of Health refers to as a “‘blow out’ and subsequent slow leak of mucus-containing epithelial cells from the adenoma. In most cases appendicular perforation is an occult event. The epithelial cells within the peritoneal cavity continue to proliferate producing large quantities of mucus.” It had been progressing silently for a while, certainly through the exhausting Somalia trip that had been “too much.”
By the time the disease was diagnosed, it had spread throughout her abdomen. The odds of contracting PMP are two in a million and the survival rates over five years are pretty good for low-grade cases; iffy for high-grade cases. It also bears mentioning that Audrey’s grandfather the baron had lived to eighty-six, her mother to eighty-four, and her father to ninety-one. But Audrey had experienced Nazi rule for five stress-filled years, most of them as a sensitive adolescent, and the last under almost continuous fire. The increasing hardships year by year in the Netherlands, coupled with the lasting effects of the Hunger Winter and her own biology, all but guaranteed that she would not, and could not, win her final battle of the war.
Acknowledgments
Dutch Girl was a magical project that couldn’t have been completed without the help of a number of people. Thank you, Tim Streefkerk at the Airborne Museum in Oosterbeek for accepting my cold call on an April afternoon and for taking my project seriously from the start. Tim put me in touch with Dutch historical researcher Maddie van Leenders, who had just worked on the museum’s “Ella and Audrey” exhibit. Maddie became my eyes and ears in the Netherlands, conducting research at the Nationaal Archief in The Hague and the Gelders Archief in Arnhem. Maddie unearthed the diary of Otto, Count van Limburg Stirum, and made her way through all 180 pages. She also did many other translations of rare documents for me. Maddie then led me through what she had found at both facilities and also organized a day trip—accompanied by Matthijs van de Laar—to the seminary at Sint-Michielsgestel and the execution site in Goirle. Thank you, Maddie, for being a tireless and meticulous detective in the name of Audrey and history.
Tim also introduced me to Joop Onnekink, who as a boy had gone to Zijpendaal with his father to trade collectible postage stamps with Baron van Heemstra. And Tim put me in touch with Robert Voskuil, whose parents lived through the battle of Oosterbeek. Robert was born in the village soon after the war and grew up on what remained for years a relic-strewn battlefield. I spent fascinating days with Robert roaming from Ginkel Heath to Velp, learning about the conflict from both British and German perspectives. Robert showed me remaining scars of battle near the Arnhem Road Bridge and slit trenches near Wolfheze and shared personal stories about his friends John Frost, Roy Urquhart, and many others of the 1st Airborne Division. Perhaps most amazing of all, Robert arranged a meeting with Sophie ter Horst, and we sat in the garden of her home where seventy-three years earlier her mother, Kate, had tended hundreds of British wounded. I was shown the spot where fifty-nine Tommies were buried in temporary graves,
and then Sophie handed me a copy of her mother’s book, Cloud over Arnhem, and gave me a warm Dutch embrace. Thank you, Sophie, for your graciousness; thank you, Robert, for making all these experiences possible.
Velpsche historian and author Gety Hengeveld-de Jong helped me get familiar with Velp through personal tours and introduced me to several Velpenaren who became key contributors to the book, namely Rosemarie Kamphuisen, Annemarth Visser ’t Hooft, Ben van Griethuysen, Herman van Remmen, Ben de Winter, and Dick Mantel, who shared memories and documentation of World War II. Annemarth introduced me to her sister, Clan Visser ’t Hooft, who was a year younger than Audrey and so shared a teenager’s perspective of the war in Velp. Gety also put me in touch with Johan Vermeulen, who lived with his family in Arnhem Centraal until his house was burned to the ground during the battle. Johan led me on guided tours of Arnhem and Velp, with stops at the site of the Tamboersbosje school, Diaconessenhuis, Fliegerhorst Deelen, Woeste Hoeve execution site, and many others. Soon my Dutch friends were family, and I was spendiing afternoons in the garden of the Boekhandel Jansen and de Feijter in Velp asking a thousand questions and listening to fascinating stories about Audrey and the war. Thank you, Gety, for arranging all of this and for serving as an interpreter on some important occasions.
After building the narrative through three trips to the Netherlands, I contacted Audrey’s son Luca Dotti, the family historian, about my project. Luca greeted my communication with enthusiasm and matched up my efforts to his own research to sort out his mother’s wartime history. He provided memories of “Mum” and her lessons about the war as well as access to Ella’s unpublished novel and the family archive. Thank you, Luca, for all your wonderful contributions to this book, and for being moved to write the foreword. This was a special honor.
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