In 1939, Audrey Hepburn’s mother decided to relocate their family from England to her father’s home in the Netherlands, believing the Nazis would pass over the neutral country. However, when Germany invaded the country a year later, she and her family lived in the same terror millions across Europe experienced. Though only 10 when she moved to the Netherlands, Audrey Hepburn did what she could to support the Dutch Resistance against their oppressors.
During the occupation, Audrey continued to attend school where she also took ballet classes. By 1944, she had become so talented she decided to raise money for the Dutch fighters by performing secret ballet shows. In a later interview she said, “…About a year before the end of the war, I was quite capable of performing. That was sort of some way in which I could make some contribution, and I did give performances to collect money for the underground, which always needed money.”
At the end of each performance, people would pass a hat around for donations. Because holding such gatherings was illegal and therefore dangerous, no one could actually clap for her performances, so they could only admire her silently. Despite the silent reception, she later said, “The best audience I ever had made not a single sound at the end of my performances.” The money would go to the Resistance Movement, though she would take a few coins for her destitute family.
After D-Day in 1944, the Germans cut off food supplies to the Netherlands as punishment for various Dutch sabotage attempts against the Nazis. The country already had limited food supplies, but now they were literally starving in the streets. Audrey’s family had to cut back to one meal a day.
After the war, Audrey went to London where she studied ballet at the Ballet Rambert, a prestigious ballet company. She took odd jobs modeling and acting to support herself while she focused on her dance career. However, her dream would be crushed by the effects of the war. She had become so malnourished during the war that it affected her longterm health and ultimately made a career in dance impossible.
Her son, Sean Ferrar, told Larry King in a 2003 interview:
That was her first dream. That was the dream of childhood that kept her going through the war, that kept her going after the war. When she went to study with Marie Rambert in London, and after a while she asked, Am I going to make it? Am I going to — am I going to be a prima ballerina? And Marie said, Well, you’re a little too tall and not enough training and poor nutrition during the war. You can always work here. You’ll always have a great career and probably make a better living as a second ballerina. But she wanted to excel at what she was going to do, and so she defaulted to acting.
Though she eventually chose to act, Audrey’s early passion for dance not only helped her develop her iconic grace, it also helped the Dutch fight their Nazi oppressors.
