By Nadine Moedt (The Cascade) – Email
Print Edition: June 20, 2012
At the beginning of World War II, Hennie Drenton-Regoczi was just five-years-old and living in Holland, but she still remembers the nightly droning of British Lancaster bombers passing over her family’s farm. It is a sound she could never forget, for it summons up recollections of her family’s experience during the Second World War, an intense time of fear, grief, sacrifice, courage and an immense faith and gratitude for their survival.
Droning of Bombers (or “How a Dutch family coped with life under German occupation, 1940-1945”), sponsored by the UFV Theatre department, recently completed its successful run in the Chilliwack North campus theatre from May 31 through June 10. Hennie Drenton-Regoczi both wrote and performed the one-person show. It was artfully directed by James Servizi.
The play was well received by a sold-out audience, whose members appeared to be in large part of Dutch heritage. Many of them had evidently, considering the discussion that followed the performance, experienced the war first hand as well. Towards the end of the play when the Dutch anthem was played to celebrate the end of the war, more than a few in the audience sang along.
The play gives an account of what many families living in Holland during World War II experienced. Drenton-Regoczi’s family lived in northern Holland, close to the German border. Although there is only one performer, the stage is populated by many characters: Hennie’s mother, father, sisters and brother, as well as other key figures in the experience of the little girl.
The story is about coping, but it is also about generosity and courage. In their own form of resistance to the Nazi occupation, the family hides a Jewish journalist in the attic and resistance fighters in the barn, in spite of being subjected to regular scrutiny from both German soldiers and the Dutch collaborators. Hennie describes the hardships—the loss of her 18-year-old sister, the scarcity of food and the bombs falling nearby—but also the faith and solidarity of her family in those troubled days.
She also describes the humanity of war. Hans, a kind and honest German soldier stationed near her family farm, regularly intervenes to protect the family from unannounced searches and confiscation of food by German authorities.
Drenton-Regoczi’s performance, given from the perspective of an ingenuous five-year-old, was honest and often highly emotional. Her evocation of the setting of the family kitchen and the fields surrounding the farm was vivid. The script does a fine job bringing to life the confusion and fear that war creates in the mind of a child and, from a child’s perspective, the strength that family provides in a time of trial.
Following the play, the performer and the director responded to questions from the audience. Drenton-Regoczi explained that the process of writing the play (which she began in 2009) was a “family effort.” Since she was only five at the time, there were holes in her memory, but once she began asking her brothers and sisters “all the stories came out.”
Drenton-Regoczi’s memories of the bombers have never faded. “They came night after night,” she said, flying over her family farm for hours. The director, Jim Servizi, commented that 60 per cent of bomber crews did not survive, and that six weeks was the average life expectancy of a tail gunner.
An audience member wanted to know more about Hans, the kind German soldier who is a key character in the play. “Hans really protected our family,” Drenton-Regoczi said. “He had a pretty good idea of what was going on in our home.” Reflecting back, Drenton-Regoczi thinks that she herself “must have talked to Hans about the man upstairs [the Jewish journalist].” But Hans revealed nothing. As part of the narrative, Hans tells Hennie about his daughter who is exactly Hennie’s age. All Hans wants is to go home to his farm and to his family. But Hans never made it. Drenton-Regoczi learned after the war that Hans had been shot and killed at the border.
Droning of Bombers was made into a film in January 2011. It will be made available to schools to be shown on Remembrance Day.
For more information and to purchase copies of the film of the play, call the box office at 604-795-2814.
