About the City of Arnhem

 Arnhem is a city and municipality situated in the eastern part of Holland.  It is the capital of the province of Gelderland and located near the river Rhine as well as the St Jansbeek which was the source of the city's development.  Arnhem has 146,095 residents (and one Irish girl!) ..... Ramdom fact for you is that Audrey Hepburn lived in Arnhem during World War II!

While in Arnhem, Hepburn attended the Arnhem Conservatory from 1939 to 1945 where she trained in ballet alongside the standard school curriculum. After the Germans invaded The Netherlands in 1940, Hepburn adopted the pseudonym Edda van Heemstra, a derivative of her mother's name "Ella,"modifying her mother's documents because an "English sounding" name was considered dangerous during the German occupation. Her mother also felt that the name Audrey may have indicated her British roots too strongly – an unwanted asset particularly as it could have attracted the attention of occupying German forces and resulted in confinement or deportation.

By 1944, Hepburn had become a proficient ballerina. She had secretly danced for groups of people to collect money for the Dutch resistance. She later said, "The best audience I ever had made not a single sound at the end of my performances."After the Allied landing on D-Day, living conditions grew worse and Arnhem was subsequently devastated by Allied artillery fire under Operation Market Garden . During the  Dutch famine that followed in the winter of 1944, the Germans blocked the resupply routes of the Netherlands’ already-limited food and fuel supplies as retaliation in railway strikes hindered German occupation. People starved and froze to death in the streets; Hepburn and many others resorted to making flour out of tulip bulbs to bake cakes and biscuits. One way that Hepburn passed the time was by drawing; some of her childhood artwork can be seen today.