Film director, Muppet Show puppeteer Frank Oz to open World War II expo in The Hague

American puppeteer and film director Frank Oz, the man behind various characters in Sesame Street and the Puppet Show, is opening an exhibition on Tuesday in the National Archive in The Hague about the war history that his parents, the puppeteers Isidore Oznowicz and Françoise Ghevaert, went through.

The couple fled Antwerp in 1940 and Isidore later joined the Princess Irene Brigade in England as a signaller, the Dutch army unit that largely consisted of England sailors.

The exposition is called Op de vlucht voor Hitler- De Engelandvaart van de familie Oznowicz, translated to On the run from Hitler- the Oznowicz family’s trip to England in English.

Isidore and Françoise’s journey has been reconstructed on the basis of files from the Dutch government in exile. "To the great joy of their son Frank Oz. He has been trying for years to find out what his parents experienced during the war," the National Archives said.

He now came to The Hague especially to help trace the journey of his father and mother. He has made several family photos and puppets of his parents available. Below that is a Hitler doll that they buried in the garden for safety reasons.

Researchers of the National Archives came upon the parents’ names and warned the man who played the roles of Miss Piggy and Cookie Monster long after the war. Oz also voiced Yoda in the Star Wars series.

Oz has been awarded primetime and daytime Emmy awards, and two Grammys, for his work on The Muppet Show and Sesame Street. He also made several memorable appearances on screen in John Landis comedies The Blues Brothers, Trading Places and Spies Like Us, and more recently in Knives Out.

He has directed Michael Caine and Steve Martin in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Bill Murray and Richard Dreyfuss in What About Bob?, Steve Martin and Eddie Murphy in Bowfinger, and his film, The Score, starred Robert DeNiro, Marlon Brando, Edward Norton and Angela Bassett.