Dutch Girl

March 25, 2019
Matzen (Mission: Jimmy Stewart) completes his trilogy of books about Hollywood figures during WWII with this exciting volume about Audrey Hepburn’s childhood and adolescence under the Nazi occupation of Holland. At first, Hepburn is largely a supporting player, having been only 11 when the Nazis invaded (she later said, “A child is a child is a child; I just went to school”). Instead, Matzen focuses on Hepburn’s mother (by then divorced from Hepburn’s father), a socialite and longtime Nazi sympathizer, and other family members, including her uncle, who was held by the Nazis and eventually shot in retaliation for Dutch resistance activity. Nevertheless, Matzen shows how war shaped Hepburn’s resilient and fiercely private personality and informed her work as a UNICEF ambassador later in life. And all is not gloom and doom, as he explores Hepburn’s fascination with dance, and her dreams of becoming a ballerina. More dominant, however, is the wartime background. Visceral details—of intense privation (“I went as long as three days without food” Hepburn recalled), constant bombings, and also acts of resistance—evoke the period. Matzen has created a vivid portrait of a civilian population under siege–one of who just happened to become a Hollywood star.

April 1, 2019

Matzen, who's previously examined World War II's impact on Hollywood stars (Fireball; Mission), turns to Audrey Hepburn and her life during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. The war years coincided with Hepburn's adolescence, and the author chronicles the actor's early performances as a dancer and her relationship with her dynamic mother, while showing how the war affected them both. This is a vivid exploration of Hepburn, her family, and the experiences of the Dutch population. Matzen discusses how Hepburn's uncle Otto, Count van Limburg Stirum, was detained and eventually executed by the Nazis, and evocatively depicts the resistance movement, the massive battles in and around Arnhem as the Allies attempted to liberate the country, and the months of near-starvation conditions in the final winter of the war. VERDICT A meticulously detailed and researched look at the formative years of an iconic performer; for fans of Hepburn as well as anyone seeking a social history of the Dutch experience of World War II.--James Collins, Morristown-Morris Twp. P.L., NJ

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