The Start Of Audrey’s Career

A place Audrey visited often was the theater in Arnhem. On May 9, 1940, Audrey attended a ballet performance of the Sadler’s Wells Ballet in the theater. The star of the show is world-famous Margot Fonteyn. Audrey’s mother Ella had contributed to the company so they would visit Arnhem on her tour through the Netherlands.

After the performance, the Baroness said a word of praise. Audrey then handed over a bouquet of flowers to the company director, Ninette de Valois. A day after the show, the German army invaded the Netherlands.

She is the most talented student of her group and from 1943 on may help with the ballet instruction. As the food shortage increases, Audrey weakens and has to stop taking lessons and instruction at the school. Later, she picked up ballet again and on January 8, 1944, Audrey herself performed in the Arnhem theater and danced as the star of the dance school to music by Debussy and Grieg. She participates in the illegal cultural evenings in Arnhem, the “Black Evenings” and also tries to raise money for the resistance with small performances.

Because an “English-sounding” name was considered dangerous during the German occupation the family used the name Edda van Heemstra after the Germans invaded the Netherlands in 1940. In 1942, Audrey’s uncle, Otto van Limburg Stirum (husband of her mother’s older sister, Miesje), was executed in retaliation for an act of sabotage by the resistance movement. He was not involved in the act, but he was targeted due to his family’s prominence in Dutch society.