29. This Star Had a Rough Childhood Under the Nazis
When WWII began in 1939, Audrey Hepburn’s mother moved her family from Belgium to the Netherlands in the hope that, as had happened in WWI, the Dutch would remain neutral. Hepburn was enrolled in a conservatory, where she was taught and honed her skills as a ballerina. Unfortunately for the Netherlands’ neutrality, Hitler and the Nazis had other ideas, and on May 10th, 1940, the Germans invaded. After a brief resistance, the massively outnumbered and overwhelmed Dutch were forced to surrender four days later. Like the rest of the Dutch, Hepburn and her family suffered great privations under Nazi occupation.
In 1942, the Germans executed her uncle in retaliation for sabotage by the resistance, even though he had not been involved. Hepburn’s half-brother was deported to Germany to toil for the Nazis as a slave worker, and another sibling went into hiding to avoid the same thing happening to him. As Hepburn recalled years later: “had we known that we were going to be occupied for five years, we might have all shot ourselves. We thought it might be over next week… six months… next year… that’s how we got through“. It was thus understandable that Hepburn wanted to do what she could against the Nazis. She had trained as a ballerina and dancer from a young age, and she put those talents to use to help the Dutch Resistance.