The year is 1940. World War II has just begun. The talented Dutch cello player Frieda Belinfante has to give up the fame she has recently obtained as the first female orchestra director in her country…
Frieda Belinfante was born in Amsterdam, 1904. Her father Aaron Belinfante was a concert piano player who introduced his daughter to her greatest passion: music. Frieda was the third of four siblings and, according to her, the only with musical talent. Belinfante made her cellist debut at the age of 16, in the Kleine Zaal (small hall) of Concertgebouw.
Shortly after, Frieda’s father got sick. She had to continue her lessons in Paris, intermittently, with the help of the French cello player Gérard Hekking. The musician became Frieda’s friend. On their first meeting, he asked her to play for him but she didn’t perform well. She told Hekking that the reason she was there was because she didn’t know how to play. Frieda said: «suddenly, his face started to brighten when I said that».
Frieda met Henriëtte Bosmans, a composer she was involved with for seven years, after a brief return to Amsterdam. The relationship was not the most healthy. According to the academic Cristina Domenech: «Frieda would recall her ex-partner as one of the greatest loves of her life but also as someone who used to give too little and ask for too much». In the words of Frieda: “She was a very talented and very attractive person in the beginning, but she was very egocentric.”
The relationship fell apart once Belinfante got married. A flute player, Joe Veldkamp (there are multiple variations with his name), proposed to her on several occasions and, on several occasions, she rejected him. Despite Frieda rejecting him, Veldkamp did not give up. He showed up at her home with a gun, saying that he would kill himself if she did not marry him. Frieda felt forced to accept. They got divorced five years later.
Interestingly, Frieda did not describe her ex-husband as a bad man. According to Fabiana Sans Arcílagos & Lucía Martín-Maestro Verbo: «Frieda said he was a bohemian who could not understand her great admiration for women». Joe Veldkamp kept supporting Frieda’s musical career after the divorce. According to some sources, he also introduced her to orchestra conducting.
Frieda began conducting diverse chamber groups for high schools and universities, until the management of the Concertgebouw invited her to form Het Klein Orkest in 1937, just a year after her divorce. Suddenly, Belinfante became one of the most important musicians in the Netherlands. She even became the first female orchestra director in the country. Heartbreakingly, Frieda had to quit the position because the Nazis controlled the arts in order to control the population: artists had to create what the occupation told them to. If they refused, they’d starve.
Frieda knew what was happening in the neighboring countries and decided to dissolve the orchestra she conducted. She began working with poets, musicians, and other artists, who were trying to financially support those refusing to collaborate with the Nazis. Her work got increasingly dangerous during the chaos. Soon enough, she saw herself implicated in a major resistance movement.
It is said that, before the war, the Dutch government were already tracking their citizens through a national registry. These documents were beneficial to the militia because, with them, the occupation was able to identify the Jewish population in the country. Here is where Frieda’s role becomes crucial.
The year is 1943 and the national registry is an obstacle to resistance… Frieda Belinfante offers a solution: destroy the citizens’ documents. The rest of the artists agree and meticulously plan an attack.
The strike took place on March 27th. The building was partially destroyed and there were no victims. They didn’t destroy many documents but, fortunately, the confusion meant some documents were ignored. The firefighters also accidentally helped destroy more documents when they damaged some papers with water.
After this small success, Frieda’s group were targeted specifically. The Gestapo found some of the members and executed them. The group split up and Belinfante started dressing “as a man” to protect her identity. According to her, the disguise was very convincing: “I passed my mother several times during that time and she never recognized me.” Frieda was undercover for three months.
Even with a new name and a new lifestyle, Belinfante had to leave her country with the help of other small resistance groups because the Gestapo were searching for her. It took her almost two months to arrive in Switzerland.
In 1944, a group of refugees took her under their protection. However, once they found out that she was a lesbian, the group were reluctant to share space with her. Homophobia did not stop her.
Now it is 1945, the war is finally over…
Frieda Belinfante decided to leave Europe and move to the U.S. After a very long break, Frieda started to play the cello again. She returned to music: to her place as an orchestra director and music teacher. She founded the Orange County Philharmonic, an orchestra that performed free concerts for the public and was financed only by sponsors. She was its active conductor until 1962. The Orchestra is still active today; it is now known as The Orange County Philharmonic Society. The concerts are not free.
Our cellist died of cancer in 1995, at the age of ninety. In 1994, the United States Holocaust Museum officially recognized the contributions of Frieda Belinfante, the musician who resisted the Nazis of World War II.
Woefully, many lesbian achievements have fallen into oblivion. It is our duty to remember and celebrate the lesbians who put their lives in danger with the purpose of helping others. Frieda Belinfante is a great example of this. I hope that you, the reader, feel inspired. I hope you find yourself reflected in history. Most of all, I hope you always recall the name and actions of this brave lesbian: Frieda Belinfante.
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