People elevate her World War 2 experience too much.
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Audrey Hepburn
SailorEwaJupiter — 2 years ago(January 08, 2024 12:43 PM)
In a conversation at a history forum, this response came up.
Not to dismiss the premise of the question entirely but in the 50s and 60s practically every adult in Europe or the US had experience of the war to a greater or lesser degree.
I was born in the UK in 1961, my father served in the Fleet Air Arm, my mother turned 18 the day after VE day, she was in the Air Training Corps. Growing up, half of my teachers had seen military service and 'what did your dad do in the war?' was still a common question.
My point being that the commonness of Hepburn's and Murphy's experiences did not, at the time, make them exceptional or necessarily impart any greater degree of rapport beyond that of any other two people working together on the same project.
Now you don't even have to be a fan of her to see across the internet how many people worship Audrey Hepburn as survivor of the Nazi regime during the world war. Countless Tumblrs revering recovery from the Dutch famine and Youtube videos talking about being a spy for the Arnhem Resistance and so much more. However inspired by the above quote, I know of many entertainers and artists who been through their own hardships during the war if not even actively fought in it like Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (author of The Little Prince). Even among actors and actresses a great many top industry names lived through it (as epitomized by Sophia Loren who herself went through two winters without food and lived through bombings).
So my question is. Is Audrey Hepburn honestly any unique for living through the Nazi horrors? Do plenty of her fans far elevate this part of her life too much with their hero worship? You just have to use the search bar of the right side of this sub to easily fine lots of posts commenting on how she is so amazing because of her wartime youth and the lots of photos taken in occupied as the quoted text points out, near everybody in Europe suffered through the Nazi regime and you don't even have to be a celebrity to have incredible stories (to not even count many famed names such as Leslie Howard who played Ashley in Gone With the Wind).
If Audrey wasn't specifically big in Hollywood, do you honestly believe she would be appraised so much for experiencing Nazism firsthand and doing some resistance efforts? I'm gonna be brutally frank, I don't think she would have stood out at all in Europe for this thing as the quoted post states. So much of Europe's entertainment industries have tons of survivors of the not just the world wars but the immediate decolonization struggles afterward. Its only because America's cinema is seen as glamor and full of wealthy in tandem with hedonism that Audrey sticks out as an unsheltered woman experienced in the hardships of the 3rd world.
I will end this with some replies from actual Dutch people (a few who had relatives who survived the war) from a recent chat in another part of the internet as a pointer.
Yeah, it's all very weird. I think it's the difference between being here, mainland Europe, where stories like Audrey's are a dime a dozen (in my own family we had children running illegal newspapers and newsletters), and being in the US where the war was something half a world away.
most of our grandparents survived world war 2. They had to, you survived or died, that were two options. So congrats Hepburn, you nailed the former.
As for hero worship, nah, unless she actually did anything special like actively sabotage or killing nazi's or after the war participating in activism against fascism, she didn't do anything special but not dying.
Beautiful daughter of a banker and a baroness. I'm sure WW2 was no picknick, but I assume she had a lot more privilege than most.
Also why would I care about her if I have Family who also went through that.
As the daughter of a baroness and a banker, she was a lot more privileged than the great majority of people who had to suffer the German occupation.
Other than that, the stories of her resistance work were never proven in any meaningful way. While it's good for her she survived the war. Others went through worse than her.
She was living in a villa in Velp from 1942 on and still doing ballet. That seems a lot more cushy than most had to endure.
We don't give a flying **** is the short answer, it's pretty American to think she is like a hero she was born in a rich family and while the war was bad for everyone it doesn't deserve any decoration or note worthy mention.
I have no idea who you are talking about and why she matters in WWII. I think it's weird to put a celebrity in focus during that time. It feels disrespectful to all the hurt this WWII has brought to so many families and the people that got murdered.
The interest in WW2 is very different here than it is in the United States. The interest in Audrey's experiences have a romantic but distant notion to it. In the Netherlands it is different because over here you can clearly see everyone has moved on. People only remind each other of it du