The musical that turned WWII resistance into the longest-running Dutch theatre production ever
Part of: Tweede Wereldoorlog
Soldaat van Oranje is a Dutch musical based on the true story of Erik Hazelhoff Roelfzema — a Leiden law student whose comfortable life ended on 10 May 1940 when Germany invaded. What followed was one of the more extraordinary Dutch stories of the war: he escaped to England, flew bombing raids for the RAF, smuggled radio equipment back into occupied Holland, and ended up as personal aide and pilot to Queen Wilhelmina in exile. He published his memoir in 1971; it was adapted into a film by Paul Verhoeven in 1977; in 2010 it became a musical. Over 3.5 million Dutch people have seen it.
The production runs at TheaterHangaar in Katwijk — a converted military aircraft hangar at the former Vliegkamp Valkenburg airbase, which gives the venue a particular weight. You are sitting in the kind of building people like Hazelhoff Roelfzema flew out of.
The format is called SceneAround: the audience sits on a rotating platform and the sets are arranged in a circle around them. The stage does not move — you do. The effect is that you are slowly turned through different scenes and periods of the story, which feels apt for a narrative that unfolds across five years and two countries.
It premiered in October 2010. It became the longest-running theatre production in Dutch history, surpassing The Phantom of the Opera, reaching 3,000 performances in 2022. The final performance is 12 July 2026 — after sixteen years.
His memoir, Soldaat van Oranje (1971), is the source for all of it. It is not a modest book — he was not a modest man. The English translation is Soldier of Orange. He describes the occupation, the escape, the RAF years, and the strange experience of being a celebrated exile while his country was being destroyed. He became a Dutch-American citizen after the war, lived in Hawaii, and died in 2007.
He was awarded the Militaire Willems-Orde, the highest Dutch military honour, and the British Distinguished Flying Cross. Queen Wilhelmina, who trusted very few people, trusted him.
The musical's run — sixteen years, 3.5 million visitors in a country of 18 million — tells you something about how the Dutch relate to WWII. The resistance story is one the Netherlands wants to tell about itself, and Hazelhoff Roelfzema is the ideal vehicle: brave, reckless, charming, unambiguously on the right side. The show does not engage with the complications — the collaboration, the bystanders, the 75% deportation rate — it celebrates the people who fought.
That is not a criticism. Societies need their heroes. The musical is a place where the Dutch can collectively feel proud of their wartime generation, without the discomfort of the full historical picture. The Verhoeven film did something similar in 1977 — it is no coincidence that both adaptations became cultural landmarks.
If you want to understand how ordinary Dutch people carry the war in their imagination — not as historians but as citizens — watching this show is a way in.
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