Believing that living in a country that had pledged
neutrality during WWII would keep them safe, actress Audrey Hepburn’s mother
relocated the family to Holland in 1939. But within weeks the Nazis invaded,
and life as they knew it was over.
Audrey’s mother, Baroness Ella Van Heemstra, was Dutch
royalty. Her father, Joseph Ruston, was a British subject born in Bohemia. Her
parents met and married in the Dutch East Indies country of Batavia (now
Jarkarta). They moved numerous times to various countries, and as a result
Audrey learned to speak five language. In the mid-1930s her parents joined the
British Union of Fascists, and her father became a true Nazi sympathizer.
Because of his infidelities, the Baroness divorced him in 1936.
The Nazis cut off food supplies to Holland, and the population
began to slowly starve. According to her son, Luca Dotti, Audrey suffered
malnutrition and weighed eighty-eight pounds at the end of the war. Her
much-envied svelte figure was actually a result of the lack of food available.
During an interview toward the end of her life, the actress said she and her
family subsisted on nettles, boiled grass, endive, and tulip bulbs. After the
war, she never ate endive again.
She was a child during the war-aged 9 to 16, and despite her
deprivation, Audrey became part of the Dutch resistance. She held silent ballet
recitals (there was no music or applause to keep from being found out by the
Nazis) and donated her earnings to the Resistance. She also acted as a courier,
delivering parcels and messages.
When she was liberated at the end of the war, a Dutch
soldier gave her a handful of chocolate bars. Audrey wolfed them down along
with the condensed milk she received from the UN, but her malnourished body
couldn’t take the rich food. She became violently ill.
According to her son, throughout her life “the taste of
chocolate, was the taste of freedom.”
What special memories does chocolate hold for you?
A freelance writer for over ten years, Linda Shenton
Matchett writes historical fiction. Her novella Love’s Harvest is available on Amazon. She is currently seeking a
publisher for her series about WWII war correspondent Ruth Brown. Visit her at www.LindaShentonMatchett.com
