Dutch Girl by Robert Matzen

Dutch Girl

Audrey Hepburn and World War II

Robert Matzen, Luca Dotti

GoodKnight Books · Print & ebook · April 15, 2019

Twenty-five years after her passing, Audrey Hepburn remains the most beloved of all Hollywood stars, known as much for her role as UNICEF ambassador as for films like Roman Holiday and Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

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Who it’s for
A practical, readable lens on a familiar name and an unfamiliar wartime context.
Genres
Lives in Entertainment, World War II: European Theater, Women's Lives
Published
GoodKnight Books, April 15, 2019

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About this book

Twenty-five years after her passing, Audrey Hepburn remains the most beloved of all Hollywood stars, known as much for her role as UNICEF ambassador as for films like Roman Holiday and Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Several biographies have chronicled her stardom, but none has covered her intense experiences through five years of Nazi occupation in the Netherlands. According to her son, Luca Dotti, “The war made my mother who she was.”

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Audrey Hepburn’s war included participation in the Dutch Resistance, working as a doctor’s assistant during the “Bridge Too Far” battle of Arnhem, the brutal execution of her uncle, and the ordeal of the Hunger Winter of 1944. She also had to contend with the fact that her father was a Nazi agent and her mother was pro-Nazi for the first two years of the occupation. But the war years also brought triumphs as Audrey became Arnhem’s most famous young ballerina. Audrey’s own reminiscences, new interviews with people who knew her in the war, wartime diaries, and research in classified Dutch archives shed light on the riveting, untold story of Audrey Hepburn under fire in World War II. Also included is a section of color and black-and-white photos. Many of these images are from Audrey’s personal collection and are published here for the first time.

Why It Clicks

A practical, readable lens on a familiar name and an unfamiliar wartime context.

Come here for

  • Audrey Hepburn through a wartime lens
  • Accessible historical framing for conversation

Expect

  • Straightforward prose
  • History that works for book-club talk

Where it sits

Lives in Entertainment73%
Women's Lives64%
World War II: European Theater59%

Percentages are BookFrontier’s reading of the book.

Publisher categories

  • Lives in Entertainment
  • World War II History
Authors
Robert Matzen, Luca Dotti
Publisher
GoodKnight Books
Published
April 15, 2019
Format
Print & ebook
Reading lane
Lives in Entertainment