Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hello, and welcome
Speaker 1: to the podcast. I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy V. Wilson.
Speaker 1: So regular listeners to the podcast might recall a while
Speaker 1: back when we talked in one of our listener mail
Speaker 1: segments about a fantastic gift that we got, which was
Speaker 1: a set of the Rootzpau comic books that were produced
Speaker 1: by the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh. Well, uh, that listener
Speaker 1: segment led to us talking with the Holocaust Center about
Speaker 1: their upcoming volume of the comic, which focuses on women upstanders,
Speaker 1: real life superheroes who stood up against wrong, and we
Speaker 1: decided to do an episode on one of the women
Speaker 1: featured in that comic. And we're also going to have
Speaker 1: interviews with some of the team behind the Rootzpau comic
Speaker 1: on an upcoming episode. But today we are covering frieda Belinfante,
Speaker 1: a woman who is inspiring both as a musician and
Speaker 1: as a member of the Dutch Resistance who risked her
Speaker 1: life again and again during World War Two in defiance
Speaker 1: of the German occupation of the Netherlands. She was born
Speaker 1: on May tenth, four in Amsterdam, the third daughter in
Speaker 1: her family. Her older sisters were Dorothea who went by Dolly,
Speaker 1: and Renee. The fourth Belonfanta child was a boy named
Speaker 1: Robert Paul. Frieda would later say that her mother had
Speaker 1: wanted a boy when she was born and quote, I
Speaker 1: have a lot of qualities that could have been a boy,
Speaker 1: but I was a girl. Frieda learned around age ten
Speaker 1: that she had another brother as well. This was a
Speaker 1: child of her father's that he had before marrying their mother,
Speaker 1: and this half brother was named Hugo. Yeah, Hugo was
Speaker 1: not a constant part of their lives, but kind of
Speaker 1: came in and out as their their half brother, and
Speaker 1: she knew him for the rest of his life. Frieda's
Speaker 1: family is very large. Her father, Aarin Belonfanta, had nine
Speaker 1: siblings and her mother, Georgine Antoinette Hess had either eight
Speaker 1: or nine siblings, uh. Frieda could not recall for sure
Speaker 1: in the interview she gave where she laid that although
Speaker 1: the two sides of the family didn't really have much
Speaker 1: in common and so they weren't particularly close, like, they
Speaker 1: didn't all gather together. Though her father had initially been
Speaker 1: on track for a career in medicine, he decided at
Speaker 1: twenty one that music was actually his life's path, and
Speaker 1: by the time Frieda was born, her father headed an
Speaker 1: Amsterdam music school and was a very prominent pianist. According
Speaker 1: to her account, her parents didn't raise their children in
Speaker 1: any particularly religious manner, although her father was Jewish. When
Speaker 1: she asked her father about religion, he told her that
Speaker 1: she should read up on all kinds of religions and
Speaker 1: see if there was something that appealed to her and
Speaker 1: that she could believe in. And from an early age,
Speaker 1: all of the Lanfonte children played music. Aarin decided that
Speaker 1: Freeda should play the cello, and Freda's sister Renee once
Speaker 1: noted in an interview that this was kind of a
Speaker 1: strange choice to give Frieda cello because Frieda's hands were
Speaker 1: fairly small and she quote had to wrestle with that instrument.
Speaker 1: But Dolly played violin already and Renee played the piano.
Speaker 1: Their father wanted Frieda to play a different instrument. In
Speaker 1: nineteen fifteen, when Frieda was eleven, her sister Dolly died
Speaker 1: of paraitonitis, and Dolly was just fourteen at that time naturally,
Speaker 1: as their parents mourned. This put a lot of strain
Speaker 1: on the family, and they really didn't speak about their
Speaker 1: loss very much. Within a year, though, Frieda's parents divorced,
Speaker 1: although the two of them had a cordial relationship from
Speaker 1: this point. As a teenager, Frieda, according to her sister, Renee,
Speaker 1: grew up very fast. Renee also noted that her sister
Speaker 1: was very popular and that both boys and girls were
Speaker 1: crazy about her. Frieda was her father's favorite child, but
Speaker 1: when her naughty behavior put her in peril of being
Speaker 1: kicked out of public school, he gave her a stern
Speaker 1: talking to because he could not afford a private school
Speaker 1: as a music teacher, so if she got kicked out,
Speaker 1: there were no other options for her education. In nine
Speaker 1: Frieda's father, Aaron, died of colon cancer. He had been
Speaker 1: sick for several years, and at first he had let
Speaker 1: his up die mominal pain go untreated. After an emergency
Speaker 1: surgery in nineteen twenty, he recovered for a time, and
Speaker 1: during that brief reprieve, he insisted that he and free
Speaker 1: to give a concert together. That was actually her first concert. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she did not feel ready for it, but he kind
Speaker 1: of pressed the issue, and they went ahead with it.
Speaker 1: Frieda studied cello, not that much with her father, but
Speaker 1: with a number of other teachers, and it was through
Speaker 1: one of them in nineteen twenty that she met a
Speaker 1: woman named Ariette Boseman's. Frieda had been at the teacher's
Speaker 1: house when she met Ariette, who was romantically involved with
Speaker 1: the teacher. That teacher was the first cellist of the
Speaker 1: Holland Orchestra, and when Henriette and the man had a
Speaker 1: falling out because he had been cheating on her and
Speaker 1: she feared at the time that she was pregnant. Frieda
Speaker 1: was then left alone with Ariette and told the obviously
Speaker 1: upset woman that she could tell her everything. Frieda and
Speaker 1: Henriette were soon romantically involved, and they lived together for
Speaker 1: seven years. Henriette was already a well known composer. She
Speaker 1: was in her twenties when the two women met, so
Speaker 1: she was older than the teen year old Bill in
Speaker 1: Fonta was. Their relationship wasn't exclusive, though Henriette had relationships
Speaker 1: with men, which Frieda said she wasn't jealous of, and
Speaker 1: then Frieda later said that their relationship wasn't particularly sexual.
Speaker 1: It seemed to be really founded more than anything else
Speaker 1: on a very deep emotional bond and on Frida's fulfillment
Speaker 1: in the role of caretaker to the composer. She later
Speaker 1: said of Honriette quote, I loved her for a long time,
Speaker 1: many many years. She was a person who took more
Speaker 1: than she gave, which was fine with me because I
Speaker 1: had an abundance of devotion to give. Henrietta Boseman's second
Speaker 1: Concerto was dedicated to Frieda. As Aaron belan Fonta's illness
Speaker 1: had progressed, he had become unable to work, So Frieda
Speaker 1: started working in those years between three professionally as a
Speaker 1: cellist with the Holland Orchestra, and she and Bozeman's had
Speaker 1: a wide range of friends who were also musicians, and
Speaker 1: it was through this circle that freedom meta floutist named
Speaker 1: Johann felt Coomp, who also went by Joe Felt Calm,
Speaker 1: was quite taken with Frieda and with her musicianship. Initially
Speaker 1: their story sounds kind of sweet. Frieda had always been
Speaker 1: the type to look out for other people, but Joe
Speaker 1: wanted her to have the same benefit in her career.
Speaker 1: But then his affection for her really became obsessive. He
Speaker 1: wanted to get married, and she explained that that wasn't
Speaker 1: really for her. And then at one point he brought
Speaker 1: a revolver into the room with him and put up
Speaker 1: on the mantel. Frieda asked him, what are you trying
Speaker 1: to do, and he said, quote, I don't want to
Speaker 1: live without you. Her response to him at this point
Speaker 1: was I'm not the marrying type. I don't think that
Speaker 1: I can love a man that way. But he responded,
Speaker 1: I want to be where you are, and so she
Speaker 1: agreed to the marriage, feeling like there was really no
Speaker 1: other choice in the matter. She later told an interviewer, like,
Speaker 1: what was I supposed to do when faced with the
Speaker 1: possibility that this man would kill himself or I could
Speaker 1: marry him. I wasn't going to be responsible for that,
Speaker 1: which is a horrible position to put someone in. Uh. Surprisingly,
Speaker 1: in many ways, they initially actually appeared to be a
Speaker 1: fairly happy couple together. They were kind of like these
Speaker 1: two chic musicians, and they were both very popular, and
Speaker 1: Frieda legitimately did like Joe as a person and she
Speaker 1: enjoyed his company. But she also noticed that almost as
Speaker 1: soon as they got married, Joe Jouadeviev seemed to vanish.
Speaker 1: He had been very fun and and kind of boisterous
Speaker 1: and a little bit of a trickster, and then all
Speaker 1: went away, and he only grew more withdrawn as time
Speaker 1: went on. They had been married in nineteen thirty one,
Speaker 1: and they divorced five years later in nineteen thirty six,
Speaker 1: And in the meantime, Frieda and Henriette had also grown apart. Yeah,
Speaker 1: when Frieda had married Joe, Anriette was still very much
Speaker 1: in their lives, but she and Freda started drifting apart.
Speaker 1: Freeda speculated that Henriette just wasn't able to manage the
Speaker 1: idea of not having Frieda entirely to herself, even though
Speaker 1: the rules were different for Arietta's own additional romances. Freda
Speaker 1: took a job teaching high school music. She had actually
Speaker 1: not been the school's first choice. A friend of hers
Speaker 1: had been who was a man, But after working in
Speaker 1: the position for a brief time, that first choice candidate
Speaker 1: found that he could not handle the kids and he quit,
Speaker 1: and Freda was called and asked if she still wanted
Speaker 1: the job, and she took it. Conducting a high school
Speaker 1: orchestra actually changed everything she had found her passion in conducting,
Speaker 1: and she also reported that she had no problem handling
Speaker 1: the kids. After the school kids put on a performance
Speaker 1: that Freda conducted, the Amsterdam University choir asked her to
Speaker 1: conduct them, and she did that. Also. As she kept
Speaker 1: working with kids, they also felt like they wanted to
Speaker 1: work with her even more, and so soon she assembled
Speaker 1: this amateur orchestra, not just with the students that she
Speaker 1: was teaching, but also with adults who were trying to
Speaker 1: pursue music as a hobby. This amateur orchestra put on
Speaker 1: a concert and that was attended by a booking agent
Speaker 1: who arranged larger performances, and that agent approached Melin Fonta
Speaker 1: and said, quote, if you can do that with an
Speaker 1: amateur orchestra, can you imagine what you can do with professionals?
Speaker 1: And Freda balked at this idea. She didn't think that
Speaker 1: any professional musician would play for her, and also Amsterdam
Speaker 1: had actually seen two other professional orchestra's form and fall
Speaker 1: apart in a pretty short period of time. But after
Speaker 1: she was promised bookings, if she could just get a
Speaker 1: successful professional concert together, Frieda, always up for the challenge,
Speaker 1: did exactly that she added attractors with this. Even among
Speaker 1: her close friends, there were concerns that she would kill
Speaker 1: her career as a cellist if she tried to become
Speaker 1: a conductor as a woman. Her best friend pointed out
Speaker 1: that she had never been trained as a conductor, and
Speaker 1: Freda responded, quote, I have had my eyes and ears open.
Speaker 1: I think I can do it. Frieda's Klina Orchestra, her
Speaker 1: little orchestra got good reviews, and so in ight she
Speaker 1: had become a professional conductor. And coming up, we're going
Speaker 1: to talk about the next phase of Frieda's life, which
Speaker 1: unfortunately detoured away from music by necessity. But first we're
Speaker 1: gonna pause for a word from one of our sponsors.
Speaker 1: In nine Frieda took a drive to Switzerland and she
Speaker 1: was going there to take a series of lessons in
Speaker 1: conducting that ended with the twelve enrolled students in the
Speaker 1: program competing as their final exam, and the winner of
Speaker 1: that competition would get to conduct a professional Swiss orchestra.
Speaker 1: Frieda was the top student and she won. She never
Speaker 1: got to claim her prize because World War Two put
Speaker 1: an end to her conducting. German troops occupied Holland on
Speaker 1: May tenth. Frieda's brother, Robert, who was a doctor, went
Speaker 1: silent after this invasion, and with no communication from him,
Speaker 1: the family understandably became very concerned. It turned out that
Speaker 1: Robert and his wife had died by suicide. The family
Speaker 1: found out when a stranger told them Robert had left
Speaker 1: his mother a note explaining that they had made the
Speaker 1: choice to die rather than to live in the world
Speaker 1: as it was. Frieda said in an interview late in
Speaker 1: her life that if she had been there, she would
Speaker 1: have told her brother that the world hadn't changed. Quote.
Speaker 1: The bad part just came too close, and while the
Speaker 1: family reeled understandably, Frieda was pretty quick to tell them
Speaker 1: that she was not ever going to handle things the
Speaker 1: way that her brother had. That she was going to resist.
Speaker 1: She told her sister Renee, quote, if the Germans catch me,
Speaker 1: they can chop me into little pieces if they want,
Speaker 1: but I'm fighting. As part of the occupation, all artists
Speaker 1: were required to join the National Socialist Culture Chamber, but
Speaker 1: Jews were forbidden to join. The orchestra that Frieda was
Speaker 1: conducting had a lot of Jewish musicians in it, so
Speaker 1: she gathered them together and said, boys, there's no orchestra,
Speaker 1: we have never existed. She preferred to give up her
Speaker 1: dream job as a conductor then to risk the safety
Speaker 1: of her musicians, and they weren't working artists in an orchestra.
Speaker 1: They weren't artists by professions, so she could hopefully avoid
Speaker 1: registration in the culture chamber that would have had to
Speaker 1: identify which of the members were Jewish. Playing music written
Speaker 1: by Jewish composers was also forbidden, and then Jewish musicians
Speaker 1: were forced out of music schools and conservatories and orchestras,
Speaker 1: which was what Frieda had foreseen. Yes, she was very
Speaker 1: quick to see the path that lay ahead of them,
Speaker 1: faster than a lot of other people, because there there
Speaker 1: were other people in the music scene. They were like, no,
Speaker 1: we can all just register. It'll be fine. We just
Speaker 1: had to register, and she's like, nope, this is how
Speaker 1: it starts um and that culture chamber had existed before
Speaker 1: the occupation but became a mandatory thing. She later spoke
Speaker 1: about her shift in focus during this time by saying, quote,
Speaker 1: I completely disappeared from the musical life and immediately started
Speaker 1: to prepare myself to do other things that needed doing.
Speaker 1: In October nineteen forty, a law requiring identification to be
Speaker 1: carried at all times was enacted. Jews had a J
Speaker 1: stamped on their papers, and this is when Frieda started
Speaker 1: forging papers. This was actually not her first time forging documents.
Speaker 1: When she was much younger, she had forged papers for
Speaker 1: a close friend who was Russian to get back into
Speaker 1: the Soviet Union to meet up with her betrothed Free
Speaker 1: to learn to carefully switch out parts of the documents
Speaker 1: to create new ones. By May of nineteen forty one,
Speaker 1: there were no Jews left in the Amsterdam music community.
Speaker 1: Frieda had started distributing forged passports from her home and
Speaker 1: she helped a lot of people flee. And then as
Speaker 1: time went on, her methods became more and more refined
Speaker 1: and she was able to print entire fake identification. Yeah,
Speaker 1: prior to that, they had kind of been cutting and pasting,
Speaker 1: you know, cutting apart some identification and making new ones,
Speaker 1: but they basically had a whole system going on by
Speaker 1: But all of this defiance and all of her work
Speaker 1: in the resistance eventually caught up with Freedom. After a
Speaker 1: passport pick up appointment was missed by a couple that
Speaker 1: she had agreed to give forged documents she wanted to
Speaker 1: check on them. They lived in her neighborhood and she
Speaker 1: knew who they were. And when she went to their home,
Speaker 1: the Gestapo was waiting and for to was arrested. She
Speaker 1: purposely talked to this officer who had taken her into custody,
Speaker 1: like she didn't know what he was talking about. She
Speaker 1: asked him to explain the laws around who was and
Speaker 1: wasn't considered Jewish. For example, Frida's father, as we explained earlier,
Speaker 1: was Jewish, but her mother wasn't. So Frieda wasn't considered Jewish,
Speaker 1: but her brother, who had married a Jewish woman, was
Speaker 1: considered Jewish. She peppered the officer with all these questions,
Speaker 1: asking him to explain all the rules about who could
Speaker 1: and couldn't interact with each other. She claimed to do
Speaker 1: not understand any of them. She acted very innocent and
Speaker 1: confused by the whole situation, until he got so tired
Speaker 1: of trying to answer her questions that he pulled the
Speaker 1: car over and told her to get out and go home.
Speaker 1: In two Freda performed her last concert as a conductor
Speaker 1: in Amsterdam. This was held in a Jewish community center
Speaker 1: and it was performed by a mix of Jewish and
Speaker 1: non Jewish students, and this was really a huge act
Speaker 1: of defiance on Freda's part. She was not legally allowed
Speaker 1: to conduct Jewish musicians during all of this. One of
Speaker 1: Frieda's best friends, Ellen Sports, trusted the wrong people who
Speaker 1: had promised to get Ellen and her Jewish husband out
Speaker 1: of Amsterdam for a price, but it turned out this
Speaker 1: whole thing was a scamp. The couple was taken instead
Speaker 1: to a concentration camp. Knowing that her friends had been
Speaker 1: betrayed in this way and sent to be murdered infuriated
Speaker 1: Freda for the rest of her life. She would later
Speaker 1: say quote that is so low, so far down in
Speaker 1: the depths of evil, that I hate to talk about it.
Speaker 1: I hate to think about it. Myself free to realize
Speaker 1: that she and some of her colleagues in the Resistance
Speaker 1: could keep forging documents, but the problem was that there
Speaker 1: couldn't be duplicate documents in city Hall. The I D
Speaker 1: s were all enumerated, and that number series made it
Speaker 1: easier to check for fake i D. So she decided
Speaker 1: that the solution was to destroy the files in city Hall,
Speaker 1: and the logic was that if one duplicate was discovered
Speaker 1: and identified as fake, it would make clear to German
Speaker 1: authorities that there were a lot of fakes probably in circulation,
Speaker 1: and it would up the chances of people getting caught
Speaker 1: and of course all of the horrible ramifications of that.
Speaker 1: So in March of nineteen forty three, the Dutch Resistance
Speaker 1: made their move to resolve this. They attacked City Hall
Speaker 1: and destroyed the Idea records. This was really no small feet.
Speaker 1: The building was guarded. Frieda's team did all kinds of
Speaker 1: research to find out how the whole operation worked, including
Speaker 1: the names of all the guards and the shift schedules.
Speaker 1: They also had a tailor make to replica police uniforms.
Speaker 1: To pull off the mission, they found a leak on
Speaker 1: the police force. You could give them details and then
Speaker 1: free to watch the whole thing from a nearby roof.
Speaker 1: But even though they were able to set fire at
Speaker 1: City Hall and that plan ultimately was a success in
Speaker 1: destroying records, there was fallout because someone betrayed the group.
Speaker 1: Because of all of the preparation and information gathering that
Speaker 1: had been involved, there were just too many people who
Speaker 1: had been talked to and thus too many people who
Speaker 1: knew about it. So everyone had to go into hiding
Speaker 1: and free to learn of her co conspirators being arrested
Speaker 1: one by one and sentenced to death for their part
Speaker 1: in the attack. One man, in particular, Rudolph Rudy Bloomgarten,
Speaker 1: had been Frieda's right hand man in planning the sabotage,
Speaker 1: and his death in particular was an especially hard blow.
Speaker 1: After the destruction of the population register at city Hall,
Speaker 1: the Germans were really intent on capturing all of the conspirators,
Speaker 1: but Frieda was always determined to keep going. She stayed
Speaker 1: on the move. She never stayed in one place for
Speaker 1: too long. She also disguised herself as a man, pitching
Speaker 1: her voice lower to complete this illusion whenever she tried
Speaker 1: to move around in the open. Frieda had some wealthy contexts,
Speaker 1: partly through her career in the arts and partly through
Speaker 1: family connections, and so that offered her an avenue to
Speaker 1: secure additional funding for the resistance as things got more
Speaker 1: and more difficult and times got leaner. One of the
Speaker 1: things that she talked about later in her life was
Speaker 1: that she went to the head of the Heineken family,
Speaker 1: who was running their successful beer business, to ask for help,
Speaker 1: and this was a huge risk. She didn't know for
Speaker 1: certain if he was sympathetic to the resistance. She talked
Speaker 1: a lot over the years about how she felt like
Speaker 1: she got really really good at being able to read
Speaker 1: a person just by looking in their eyes, and in
Speaker 1: this case her instinct had been correct. He was sympathetic.
Speaker 1: But still there were obstacles. So the Germans were tracking
Speaker 1: the company's finances, checking to see where all the money
Speaker 1: came from into the business and how that money was
Speaker 1: being spent. So finally he asked Freda, do you have
Speaker 1: an idea? And she actually did. She said, by my cello.
Speaker 1: They're pretty costly, you know. So they were able to
Speaker 1: have this completely above board transaction where she gave him
Speaker 1: her cello and exchange for the money that the resistance needed.
Speaker 1: She also got that cello back when the war ended
Speaker 1: with no problems whatsoever. Even as her efforts were leading
Speaker 1: to really meaningful actions and successes for the Dutch Resistance,
Speaker 1: Frieda also recognized that she was soon going to run
Speaker 1: out of luck. She also knew that anyone that was
Speaker 1: even suspected of an association with her would be in
Speaker 1: day Germ to further complicate matters, While lifting a heavy
Speaker 1: iron bed that concealed the trap door in one of
Speaker 1: the houses that she sheltered in. Freda got a hernia
Speaker 1: and needed to have it operated on. Was just made
Speaker 1: all of this very delicate, time of being nearly discovered
Speaker 1: all the time even more complicated. She used a false
Speaker 1: name and she went to a doctor that had been
Speaker 1: recommended that she later described as being quote on the
Speaker 1: right side. But fewer than ten days after this surgery,
Speaker 1: the plan for her to flee had to be put
Speaker 1: into motion. It was time for her to move, and
Speaker 1: she did. She was supposed to go from Brussels to
Speaker 1: Paris to Switzerland and her escape. And this was not
Speaker 1: an easy trip. This was in winter, A lot was
Speaker 1: on foot. She had to follow contacts at various points
Speaker 1: who couldn't actually acknowledge her. So there was this just
Speaker 1: a lot of guesswork and risk in the whole plan. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there was one uh section where she's describing this plan
Speaker 1: where she said she had to go to a train station,
Speaker 1: wait for two men to get off the train. They
Speaker 1: wouldn't look at her, but they would go off in
Speaker 1: a direction and she would have to follow them. But
Speaker 1: I was just singing, this could be any two dudes
Speaker 1: that get off a train. She doesn't know necessarily that
Speaker 1: she's following the right men. Like every single step of
Speaker 1: this had huge question marks around it, and by the
Speaker 1: time Freda reached Brussels, the planned Brussels Paris, Switzerland path
Speaker 1: of moving refugees out of the Netherlands had been discovered
Speaker 1: by the Nazis and it was no longer useful, so
Speaker 1: Freda traveled instead to Lelle, France, where she had the
Speaker 1: contact information for another safe house. When she got there, though,
Speaker 1: there was a huge and terrifying coincidence that same Gestapo
Speaker 1: officer that she had duped in Amsterdam by pretending she
Speaker 1: didn't know all the laws, that was the very same
Speaker 1: person who opened the door of this safe house and
Speaker 1: told her to enter. She put it very plainly when
Speaker 1: she was telling this story later quote, I ran for
Speaker 1: my life. She ran into a nearby store and hid there.
Speaker 1: Once she was convinced that the coast was clear, she
Speaker 1: left and she made her way to Paris. After several
Speaker 1: weeks in Paris, she traveled with a contact in the
Speaker 1: resistance she had made their named Tony, to the Swiss border,
Speaker 1: and this was in February of nine Tony was pretty
Speaker 1: open with her that he was fearful because he looked
Speaker 1: obviously Jewish and he thought he might put her in
Speaker 1: jeopardy as a consequence, but she responded to his concern
Speaker 1: with quote, Tony, by the time they see us, it
Speaker 1: doesn't matter whether you look Jewish or not. And when
Speaker 1: they reached the Swiss border, despite being unable to swim,
Speaker 1: she and Tony had to cross a river carrying their
Speaker 1: clothes over their heads. And then when they got to
Speaker 1: the Swiss side of the river and regrouped, they realized
Speaker 1: that they were at the base of a steep mountain
Speaker 1: that there was no way they were going to be
Speaker 1: able to climb, and so they didn't have anywhere to hide.
Speaker 1: They had to walk along the river with no cover.
Speaker 1: Their long walk through the snow was though, in Frieda's
Speaker 1: own words, gorgeous, and it was something she never forgot.
Speaker 1: But they were discovered when they stopped at an end
Speaker 1: to try to call the Dutch consulate. They were arrested
Speaker 1: by Swiss border police and taken once A in on
Speaker 1: foot to show de font to be imprisoned. Frieda gave
Speaker 1: a Swiss reference to prove that she was Dutch. And
Speaker 1: that checked out. But Tony, on the other hand, was
Speaker 1: sent back into the cold on the French side of
Speaker 1: the border. When she was asked if she and Tony
Speaker 1: were a couple, Frida answered truthfully that they were just friends,
Speaker 1: and she realized only later that if she had just
Speaker 1: lied and said that they were together, that she might
Speaker 1: have saved him. Frida was moved to a Dutch refugee
Speaker 1: hotel camp, and this was actually a very difficult time
Speaker 1: for her. She didn't really have any sense of connection
Speaker 1: or camaraderie with her fellow refugees. Some of them gossiped
Speaker 1: about her, largely around speculation about whether she was a lesbian,
Speaker 1: and she felt like a complete outsider. She later said
Speaker 1: that she felt dead inside when she was there with
Speaker 1: the other refugees at montrou and thought that she would
Speaker 1: never be able to make music again. When the war ended,
Speaker 1: Freda returned to Amsterdam. She went by convoy in a
Speaker 1: journey that she described as misery. When she got there,
Speaker 1: she found that her apartment had been sealed up by
Speaker 1: the Gesta bo, but everything inside it was as she
Speaker 1: had left it. As the city of Amsterdam tried to
Speaker 1: resume a life that was something like normal. There was
Speaker 1: really a lot of difficulty and strife. Because there were
Speaker 1: a lot of people who had worked with the Germans
Speaker 1: and were still part of the city, they seemed to
Speaker 1: face no repercussions. The conductor Edward von Bynum was one
Speaker 1: such person, and he went right back to work. Freed
Speaker 1: To described seeing the people who had collaborated with the
Speaker 1: Germans and such good standing in the city as quote
Speaker 1: a very cold shower frieda bel and Fonte made a
Speaker 1: significant change in her life after the war, and we're
Speaker 1: going to talk about that right after we take a
Speaker 1: quick sponsor break. Freed To understandably did not really feel
Speaker 1: like herself after the war ended and she returned to
Speaker 1: her home. She described this period as a time when
Speaker 1: she felt no joy and she didn't want to build anything,
Speaker 1: And for a woman who had been so driven all
Speaker 1: of her life, this was a very sharp contrast. And
Speaker 1: as time went on she knew that she just she
Speaker 1: needed a change. So in seven she decided to make
Speaker 1: her way to New York, which she did with the
Speaker 1: help of a sponsor. But when she got there, she
Speaker 1: found she didn't really like New York all that much.
Speaker 1: She had tried to make connections to get a job
Speaker 1: as a cellist, but after an agent told her that
Speaker 1: the cellis she already represented couldn't get enough work. That
Speaker 1: woman then asked Freda what else she could do, and
Speaker 1: Belinfanta offered up a headshot that listed her as a conductor,
Speaker 1: and the agent said that's worse, and so Freda said
Speaker 1: goodbye and she left the office. After that, she decided
Speaker 1: to travel the United States and to see where felt
Speaker 1: like the right place to make a new home. She
Speaker 1: was staying with the sister of one of her friends
Speaker 1: from school. This is a woman named Many. Many bought
Speaker 1: a little car and took some vacation time, and the
Speaker 1: two of them set out to see the United States together.
Speaker 1: Frida found these travels incredibly refreshing and restorative. As they traveled,
Speaker 1: no one knew who she was or what she had
Speaker 1: been through, so she didn't feel the oppressive shadow of
Speaker 1: the war in the same way that she had back
Speaker 1: in Europe. When Frieda and Many got to California, Many
Speaker 1: sold Free to the car This is a cross ley
Speaker 1: that Frieda described as being like a sewing machine. Many
Speaker 1: went back to New York and Freeda stayed with a
Speaker 1: friend that she had made when she was crossing over
Speaker 1: from Europe. This was a woman named Ivy Fraser. Frieda
Speaker 1: and Ivy bought a house together, and similarly to her
Speaker 1: relationship with Henriette Bosmans, she said that her relationship with
Speaker 1: Ivy was quote low gear sexually, but the two of
Speaker 1: them were very close. Freda worked for a while at
Speaker 1: a university as an assistant conductor and a music teacher,
Speaker 1: but soon she realized she could make better money playing
Speaker 1: for movie studio orchestras, and during this time, while she
Speaker 1: was taking a lot of freelance work, someone recognized her
Speaker 1: name and asked if she was related to the famous
Speaker 1: woman conductor from Amsterdam. When she told him no, she
Speaker 1: was not a relative, she was that woman conductor. He
Speaker 1: was at first incredulous because she was taking these little, piecemeal,
Speaker 1: cheap jobs in Hollywood and it just didn't match up
Speaker 1: in his head. Then he offered freed to the chance
Speaker 1: to conduct again, although he was clear that it would
Speaker 1: not be for pay. She didn't entirely believe him, but
Speaker 1: then he told her that there were a lot of
Speaker 1: musicians in Hollywood who were making a living playing fully
Speaker 1: and doing accents sound for film, but they never got
Speaker 1: to play in concert, and he said that he could
Speaker 1: pull an orchestra together from these folks, and he was
Speaker 1: true to his word. He put together in orchestra and
Speaker 1: they all met for the first time in the Highland
Speaker 1: Avenue High School auditorium. And just as Frieda had found
Speaker 1: her passion for conducting in a high school initially, that
Speaker 1: spark was reignited in another high school, this time in
Speaker 1: Los Angeles. And when the first session ended with these
Speaker 1: new musicians, Freda asked all of them if they would
Speaker 1: like to come back the next week, and they all
Speaker 1: said yes. Soon their little orchestra was booked at the
Speaker 1: Redlands ball in Redlands, California. Frieda called it quote the
Speaker 1: most poetical concert that I remember. She gave twelve curtain calls.
Speaker 1: After this triumph, people in Orange County started asking why
Speaker 1: they didn't have events like this one that hosted Frieda
Speaker 1: and her orchestra, and that was a catalyst for the
Speaker 1: formation of the Orange County Philharmonic, which named Frieda Belinfanta,
Speaker 1: who was fifty at the time, as conductor. She was
Speaker 1: the first woman principal conductor of a professional symphony orchestra,
Speaker 1: and by her account, she initiated every program that they
Speaker 1: ever had. She also had to educate the community about music,
Speaker 1: and one year she gave seventy five speeches trying to
Speaker 1: do so to drum up support for the orchestra. They
Speaker 1: had really rave reviews and well attended shows, but when
Speaker 1: Frieda's first five year contract was up, she was told
Speaker 1: it was not going to be renewed and that the
Speaker 1: symphony was being disbanded. There are different versions of exactly
Speaker 1: how things played out. Free to believe that gossip about
Speaker 1: her lesbianism was part of it. She said of this
Speaker 1: time quote, I've always been approached by the women. I
Speaker 1: never had to go after anyone because they were always
Speaker 1: after me. I was plagued by it an Orange County.
Speaker 1: These people I didn't ask for. I wasn't after people.
Speaker 1: They were after me all the time. But then of
Speaker 1: course when I didn't follow through, they became nasty. Arts
Speaker 1: advocate and Orange County Philharmonic founder Elaine Redfield told a
Speaker 1: different version of the story, one that had more to
Speaker 1: do with community politics in the arts in the Los
Speaker 1: Angeles area. She said in a documentary interview years later
Speaker 1: that the director of the l A Philharmonic had been
Speaker 1: threatened by the Orange County Philharmonic and that he had
Speaker 1: simply used his influence to push the O c P
Speaker 1: out of existence. This was the time with a lot
Speaker 1: of changes for Frieda. In addition to her job in
Speaker 1: Orange County ending, she also split up with Ivy Fraser
Speaker 1: and the house that they bought together was sold. Freda
Speaker 1: moved into her own place in Laguna Beach. Freeda gave
Speaker 1: her last concert as a conductor in the late eighties
Speaker 1: and Laguna Beach, and soon after that it became apparent
Speaker 1: that her hearing was failing. She started to think that
Speaker 1: the musicians were playing out of tunes, specifically the strings,
Speaker 1: but it was actually her hearing that had changed, and
Speaker 1: that was a painful realization for someone who so deeply
Speaker 1: loved music. Frieda and her partner at the time, time
Speaker 1: Bobby Chambers, moved to Santa fe when Frieda retired from conducting,
Speaker 1: but then she was diagnosed with cancer not long after that,
Speaker 1: and that quashed Freda's plan for a languid and quiet retirement.
Speaker 1: On May thirty, at the age of ninety, free To
Speaker 1: gave a long form interview to Klaus Mueller for the
Speaker 1: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and in that interview she
Speaker 1: told her entire life story. That interview was a significant
Speaker 1: part of the research for this episode, and you can
Speaker 1: see videos of it online as well as read a
Speaker 1: full transcript, and we're gonna link to that in the
Speaker 1: show notes. A few days before her death, free To
Speaker 1: told Bobby that she had a beautiful dream that she
Speaker 1: was in a pool and that people from all the
Speaker 1: various times of her life got into the pool and
Speaker 1: came to her and told her good job. Freda melan
Speaker 1: Funta died nine months after her interview for the Holocaust Museum,
Speaker 1: and after her death, Elaine Redfield said of her quote,
Speaker 1: she was an excellent conductor by any standard, but the
Speaker 1: world wasn't ready at that point in time for a
Speaker 1: lady conductor. It was a shame. She was enormously able.
Speaker 1: Eric Vulmer, former Orange County Philharmonic Society executive director, said
Speaker 1: of Frieda quote, she was really a trailblazer in the
Speaker 1: arts for Orange County. She was feisty, indefatigable, single minded,
Speaker 1: but more than anything, she really cared about music and
Speaker 1: she wanted to share the art with a broad based community.
Speaker 1: Frieda was a very quotable woman. If you watch those
Speaker 1: videos of her read that transcript, you realize she lived
Speaker 1: out a lot of singers, and not only was she
Speaker 1: a resistance fighter and a top notch musician, she also
Speaker 1: had a way of seeing the world with great personal
Speaker 1: confidence and clarity about her position in it. As an
Speaker 1: illustrative example, I wanted to close out with a quote
Speaker 1: of hers that I absolutely love. She said quote, if
Speaker 1: people have a conceived idea why they don't want to
Speaker 1: have anything to do with me, I'm not inquiring of
Speaker 1: trying to find out why, because if people don't want
Speaker 1: to have anything to do with me, then it's not
Speaker 1: my kind of people. I love her so much. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: she's pretty great. Um. I found myself just down a
Speaker 1: rabbit hole of like gazing at her, watching her do interviews,
Speaker 1: and uh, there are some great clips in a documentary
Speaker 1: that was made about her in the late nineties where
Speaker 1: you see her teaching music and realize just how she
Speaker 1: can be so straightforward and blunt with people, but also
Speaker 1: very warm and encouraging at the same time, and like,
Speaker 1: it's just it's beautiful. I have fun listener mail from
Speaker 1: our recent travels tell me so as people may know.
Speaker 1: We were recently on tour. We did the Texas leg
Speaker 1: of our tour this past week, and while we were
Speaker 1: traveling UH in Houston, one of our listeners named in
Speaker 1: Net brought us a beautiful out false Muka postcard and Uh.
Speaker 1: She and her husband were both of the show, and
Speaker 1: they were absolutely lovely. And I feel so lucky anytime
Speaker 1: we get to do those shows and meet listeners and
Speaker 1: spend time with them, and we all laughed together and
Speaker 1: have meet and greets and it's super great fun. Uh
Speaker 1: and I really like this postcard and wanted to read it,
Speaker 1: she writes. Tracy and Holly, we enjoyed listening to the
Speaker 1: podcast on the Defenstration of Prague before visiting Prague and
Speaker 1: Budapest earlier this year. There is so much we don't
Speaker 1: learn in history class about this part of the world.
Speaker 1: For instance, I was an art history double major and
Speaker 1: never heard of the artist Alfonse Mucha until we planned
Speaker 1: our trip. A visit to the Mucha Museum was a highlight.
Speaker 1: I bought this postcard for you there and thank you
Speaker 1: for missed in history. UM. And then you're so cute
Speaker 1: and it was so wonderful to meet you. She and
Speaker 1: her husband. As I said, we're absolutely lovely as we're
Speaker 1: all of our awesome listeners that came out and saw us. Yes, Um,
Speaker 1: we had such a great time on that tour. I
Speaker 1: can't even begin to describe what good, fortunate it feels like.
Speaker 1: And if folks are wondering, yes, an episode from it
Speaker 1: will be an episode of the podcast. It's just not
Speaker 1: quite yet. Yeah, it will be out soon ish. Uh.
Speaker 1: We have a lot of stuff kind of in the schedule,
Speaker 1: so it's maybe a little more delayed sometimes in terms
Speaker 1: of when it goes live after when we've recorded it,
Speaker 1: but not by much. So it's coming. You two will
Speaker 1: hear all of our silly adventures. Uh. If you would
Speaker 1: like to reach out to us and can't make it
Speaker 1: to a live show to hand us a postcard, you
Speaker 1: can email us. We have a new email address, so
Speaker 1: that has changed up from anything you've heard on previous episodes.
Speaker 1: The new address is History Podcast at I heart radio
Speaker 1: dot com. Uh. The old address will work for a
Speaker 1: little while, but I don't know how long, and we
Speaker 1: are making the transition over fully to the I heart
Speaker 1: radio address. So again that is History Podcast at I
Speaker 1: heart radio dot com. You can still reach out to
Speaker 1: us on social media as missed in History pretty much everywhere,
Speaker 1: and you can also visit us on our website at
Speaker 1: missed in History dot com. If you would like to
Speaker 1: subscribe to the show, we would like you to do
Speaker 1: that as well. You can do that on the I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, at Apple podcast or wherever it is
Speaker 1: you listen stuff you Missed in History Class is a
Speaker 1: production of I heart Radios How Stuff Works. For more podcasts.
Speaker 1: For my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.