{PDF EPUB} Soldier of Orange by Erik Hazelhoff Roelfzema Information About the Dutch Production
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Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Soldier of Orange by Erik Hazelhoff Roelfzema Information about the Dutch production. Will they fight for freedom, country and the Queen? Go on studying as if nothing’s changed? Or go over to the enemy side? Until the day that German troops invaded the Netherlands in May 1940, Erik Hazelhoff Roelfzema and his friends lead ordinary, untroubled lives as students at the University of Leiden. Suddenly, these callow young men are confronted with choices that will change them forever. Friendship, love, everything they’ve ever counted on will be put to the test. Will they fight for freedom, country, and the Queen? Go on studying as if nothing’s changed? Or go over to the enemy side? Soldier of Orange is based on the true story of one of the greatest Dutch resistance war fighters, Erik Hazelhoff Roelfzema. After escaping to England at the start of the war, he smuggled radio transmitters into the Netherlands and piloted an RAF plane on bombing runs over Germany. He became aide-de-camp to Queen Wilhelmina and was awarded the highest Dutch military honor for his work in the resistance. In 1970, Hazelhoff Roelfzema published a novel about his adventures. In 1976, the book was made into a successful film by Paul Verhoeven. Soldier of Orange is based on Erik Hazelhoff Roelfzema’s own version of the story. Soldier of Orange premiered on October 30, 2010 with the former Queen of the Netherlands Beatrix in attendance. The theatre, where the Dutch production Soldier of Orange plays (currently paused due to Covid-19) is a plane hangar at the former Valkenburg Airport in the Netherlands. The audience experiences the show in ‘SceneAround’, a theatrical performance solution specially developed for this production. The audience is seated on a 360-degree rotating auditorium that turns from set to set, accompanied by 180-degree projections, to create an unforgettable theatre experience. Since 2015 the production has broken all Dutch theatre records. Soldier of Orange played more than 2,800 sold-out performances to a total audience of over 3 million. To purchase tickets for the Dutch production in Katwijk near Leiden, click here. The first English production of Soldier of Orange will open in London in the purpose built Royal Docks Theatre. For more information please click here. Ik word graag op de hoogte gehouden van het laatste nieuws en vrienden-voordelen van Soldaat van Oranje - De Musical en producent NEW Productions. Erik Hazelhoff Roelfzema. Siebren Erik Hazelhoff Roelfzema DFC RMWO (3 April 1917 – 26 September 2007) was a Dutch wartime RAF-pilot, Dutch spy and writer. He was a Knight 4th class of the Military William Order. In the Netherlands he became famous as the writer of the 1970 book Soldaat van Oranje (Dutch: Soldier of Orange ) in which he describes his experiences in World War II, and which was made into a 1977 film directed by Paul Verhoeven and starring Rutger Hauer. Contents. Early life [ edit | edit source ] Hazelhoff was born in Surabaya, on Java in the Netherlands East Indies (now Indonesia), the son of Siebren Erik Hazelhoff Roelfzema, senior, and Cornelia Vreede. His family moved to The Hague in the 1930s, and then Wassenaar. He travelled to the US in 1938, writing a book of his experiences in 1939, Rendezvous in San Francisco . He was a law student at Leiden University when the Second World War broke out. He joined the Dutch army reserve, and became involved in the underground after Germany occupied the Netherlands. He managed to escape to the United Kingdom as a crew member aboard of the Saint Cerque, a Swiss merchant ship in June 1941, together with Bram van der Stok and two others. Secret agent [ edit | edit source ] In London, Hazelhoff Roelfzema, with the help of general François van 't Sant, director of the Dutch CID (Central Intelligence Service) and Col. Euan Rabagliatti (Secret Intelligence Service) set up a secret service group known as the Mews, after Chester Square Mews where they lived in London. The goal was to establish a contact with the Resistance in the Netherlands. Several agents were parachuted, others were put ashore at the beaches of Noordwijk and Scheveningen. Roelfzema did not receive much cooperation from the Dutch government, and Van 't Sant was forced to transfer control over the CID to Colonel Mattheus de Bruyne of the Dutch Marine Corps. De Bruyne did not do a good job. He failed to recognize the fact that his agents were arrested and continued to broadcast messages – for the Germans. The usual procedure for transmitting messages was to include small errors. If an agent was forced to work for the Germans, he would leave out the errors. The result should be that contact was aborted immediately. De Bruyne, however, concluded that the agents simply forgot to use the security-checks and even sent messages to remind them. Other intelligence blunders were the maps he had attached to the wall in his London office, showing the landing sites of Noordwijk, Scheveningen and Walcheren in full detail. Hazelhoff Roelfzema and De Bruyne did not get on. De Bruyne threatened to court-martial for ignoring an order – at the same time Hazelhoff Roelfzema was proposed for the Willemsorde (the highest military decoration in the Netherlands). He was awarded the Willemsorde (Knight, 4th class) in 1942: the court-martial was cancelled after a meeting with Dutch Navy minister Furstner. The 1979 history of the Special Operations Executive network in the Netherlands by M.R.D. Foot has confirmed the degree of German penetration of SOE's Dutch networks, something SOE denied during the War. The British intelligence effort in the Netherlands was penetrated throughout the war, from the capture of two SIS agents, Captain Sigismund Payne Best and Major Richard Stevens in the Venlo Incident in November 1939, to the capture of some 50 British and Dutch agents by the Abwehr and the Sicherheitsdienst in Operation North Pole. Royal Air Force [ edit | edit source ] Hazelhoff Roelfzema became frustrated by the treatment and joined the Royal Air Force in 1942. He attended flying school in Canada, where he became the best pilot cadet of his group. He returned to England in 1944, and joined No. 139 Squadron RAF, part of the elite Pathfinder Force, tasked with illuminating targets for the night bombers of RAF Bomber Command. He made 72 sorties in Mosquito bombers, of which 25 went to Berlin, and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. Adjudant to the Queen [ edit | edit source ] In April 1945, Hazelhoff Roelfzema was appointed adjudant (assistant) to Queen Wilhelmina. He accompanied her back to the Netherlands in May 1945, and piloted the airplane in which Princess Juliana, Prince Bernhard and their daughter Princess Beatrix flew back to the Netherlands. Hazelhoff Roelfzema helped Beatrix walk her first steps on liberated Dutch soil. After the war [ edit | edit source ] Hazelhoff Roelfzema led a fairly restless life after the war, including a stint in Hollywood as an actor and then a writer. During the 1950s he worked as a writer for NBC's Today Show and Tonight Show in New York City. He later wrote for Dutch newspapers. He was appointed director of Radio Free Europe in Munich in 1956. Later he was involved in a failed attempt by the CIA to support the South Moluccas Republic's bid for independence from the rule of Indonesian dictator Sukarno. [1] He was involved in the creation of Racing Team Holland, attracting sponsors using his fame. His book Soldier of Orange (Soldaat van Oranje), published in 1970, relates his adventures during the war and the political turmoil of the Dutch government in exile. It attracted a lot of attention, even more so when it was made into a film by Paul Verhoeven in 1977, starring Rutger Hauer as Hazelhoff Roelfzema. The film brought Verhoeven, Hauer and Hazelhoff Roelfzema to wider public attention outside the Netherlands, and was nominated for a Golden Globe. In 1980, Hazelhoff Roelfzema played a ceremonial role as one of two kings of arms at the inauguration of Queen Beatrix. He was close to Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands, whom he entertained frequently at his home in Maui. He moved to Hawaii in early 1973, and joined energy company Barnwell Industries Inc. as a director in 1977. He wrote a second autobiography, In Pursuit of Life , in 2000. He died on 26 September 2007 at his home in Āhualoa near Honoka ʻ a, on the Island of Hawai ʻ i, at the age of 90. [2] He was survived by his wife, Karin Steensma, and their son, daughter, granddaughter and great-granddaughter. The Soldier of Orange dies at 90. A tiny urn of ashes – bearing only the inscription, Soldier of Orange –will solemnly be carried from an aeroplane at Amsterdam airport on Thursday. For Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, who is rumoured to have planned a royal reception, it will be a poignant moment: the return to his native soil of the remains of Erik Hazelhoff Roelfzema, Holland's most heroic and decorated Second World War resistance fighter. The death of Roelfzema, 90, announced yesterday, has saddened a nation – and reminded the world of the brave opponents of the Nazis who risked everything in the struggle for their people's freedom. Queen Beatrix expressed ''great sadness" and Jan Peter Balkenende, the Dutch prime minister, described Roelfzema as ''a great patriot and a very special person". He died last week at his home in Honoka'a in Hawaii, where he had lived since 1973. It was Roelfzema, known in Holland as the Soldier of Orange because of his close links to the Royal Family, who piloted the plane that brought the Queen's late parents, Queen Juliana and Prince Bernhard, out of exile and back to Holland after the war.