Uncle's execution

In 1942, her uncle, Otto van Limburg Stirum (husband of her mother's older sister, Miesje), was executed in retaliation for an act of sabotage by the resistance movement; while he had not been involved in the act, he was targeted due to his family's prominence in Dutch society. Hepburn's half-brother Ian was deported to Berlin to work in a German labor camp, and her other half-brother Alex went into hiding to avoid the same fate.