There is so much second world war on television – history programmes, prestige dramas, celebrity genealogy shows – that you might assume all the most compelling tales have been told already, three or four times over. But not this one. And, oh, what a story it is. If the gay painter Willem Arondeus and the lesbian cellist Frieda Belinfante seem unlikely heroes of the Dutch resistance, that is only because official histories have taught us so little about the true nature of courage. Their incredible wartime adventures, which saved thousands of Jewish lives, are related here by the famously knowledgable former QI quiz host Stephen Fry – and even he had never heard of them. Even more noteworthy is the fact that, as Fry points out, their names are little known in the Netherlands.
Crucially, Fry brings more than erudition to the archive table. Viewing the Arondeus collection in Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum, he not only notes the apparent influence of Oscar Wilde’s most famous illustrator, Aubrey Beardsley, but draws on his own adolescent experience to speculate on how Wilde’s persecution might have affected young Arondeus. “[It] would have cast a dark shadow on his sense of self … It made me think, ‘This is the fate of gay people … we will be outcast.’” Later, shown a yellow Star of David cloth badge, the kind that Jewish people were forced to wear, Fry shudders visibly. These are the visceral reactions of someone with a personal connection to the history, not a jobbing presenter on another indifferent gig.
