My Name Is Selma: The remarkable memoir of a Jewish Resistance fighter and Ravensbrück survivor

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In recent weeks we heard about a story that was almost as remarkable as Ariana’s. It belonged to ninety-eight year-old Dutch Holocaust survivor called Selma van de Perre. Selma was just eighteen years-old when World War Two began. Her family were members of th populous Jewish community in Holland. Until 1940 this had been of little consequence, but in the aftermath of the Nazi invasion they were targeted for deportation. Selma van de Perre and her son, Jocelin, during a presentation of her book at the National Holocaust Museum, Jan. 9, 2020. (Cnaan Liphshiz) Van de Perre is the daughter of Jewish actor, singer, and presenter Barend Velleman and Fem Spier. [3] [4] Van de Perre had two older brothers, David and Louis, and a younger sister, Clara. The family was liberal and, while Jewish, were not practicing Jews. [3] [4] Her eldest brother sailed with the Dutch Steamboat Company during the war, while her youngest brother was in England. [3] In 1942, Van de Perre was called to report to work in a fur factory that supplied the German army, but she managed to get an exemption. [4] When her father was arrested later that year and taken to Camp Westerbork, Selma helped her mother and sister go into hiding in Eindhoven. [3] Resistance [ edit ] I definitely think Selma kept the readers at arm's reach in this book, and I'm not sure if I really understood who she was deep down (for example Edith Eger's The Choice, I really felt like I knew Edith and her personality). But also I find this extremely understandable as Selma is telling us about an extremely traumatic time in her life that she might not want to deep dive into too much,

Van de Perre’s two older brothers survived the war in the United Kingdom, where she moved, too, starting a family and working as a journalist.

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The woman was screaming, ‘no, no, no, please, no, no, no!’” De Perre recounted. “We never saw her again.” Prior to her arrest, van de Perre aided the Nazi fighters by traveling across the Netherlands to distribute resistance newspapers.

I was told I was [going to be] in prison for the duration of the war,” she said. “I was put to work in the gas-mask factory.” Van de Perre joined the resistance at the age of 20. Posing as a nurse to avoid deportation, she arranged a safe house for herself, her mother and 15-year-old sister. Her father was sent to a concentration camp, where he was killed. But her mother and sister were safe for a while, allowing her to devote her attention to fighting the Germans. After her liberation, Selma reunited with her brother, David, in London, where she worked at the Dutch Embassy. She has also worked as both a teacher of sociology and mathematics, and a BBC journalist.Selma van de Perre was seventeen when World War II began. Until then, being Jewish in the Netherlands had not been an issue. But by 1941 it had become a matter of life or death. On several occasions, Selma barely avoided being rounded up by the Nazis. While her father was summoned to a work camp and eventually hospitalized in a Dutch transition camp, her mother and sister went into hiding—until they were betrayed in June 1943 and sent to Auschwitz. In an act of defiance and with nowhere else to turn, Selma took on an assumed identity, dyed her hair blond, and joined the Resistance movement, using the pseudonym Margareta van der Kuit. For two years “Marga” risked it all. Using a fake ID, and passing as Aryan, she traveled around the country and even to Nazi headquarters in Paris, sharing information and delivering papers—doing, as she later explained, what “had to be done.” Selma komt over als een onverschrokken heldin. Het boek leest als een spannend avontuur (want je weet dat het in ieder geval voor haar goed afloopt). Schrijnend vond ik het gat waarin ze viel na de oorlog. Hoe ze door sommige mensen gediscrimineerd werd omdat ze Joods was, hoe ze in haar eentje haar traumatische ervaringen probeerde te verwerken. Hoe ze er achter moest komen dat haar ouders en zusje van 15 vermoord waren. Hans van Zon, Verzetsvrouw Selma van de Perre: 'Elke dag ben ik blij dat ik leef'. Het Parool( 7 januari 2020).Geraadpleegd op 13 januari 2010. Spears’ vulnerability shines through as she describes her painful journey from vulnerable girl to empowered woman. As today’s event comes to a close, we’d like to thank Ms. Van De Perre again for joining us. It’s been a pleasure ma’am,” Hileman said. “May each of us remember the powerful story we heard here today and use the knowledge to fight the evil that exists in our society, to stand up for freedom, equality, justice and peace and to better ourselves and the world around us.”

Uitzending De Wereld Draait Door met Sema van de Perre. BNNVARA( 7 januari 2020).Geraadpleegd op 7 januari 2020. After De Perre concluded her talk, Col. Brandon R. Hileman, 86th Airlift Wing vice commander, thanked her and presented her with a gift as a token of appreciation. What a talent, what a career, what a life, and what a treat to relive it all with this most down-to-earth of demigods. Selma van de Perre and her son, Jocelin, during a presentation of her book at the National Holocaust Museum in Amsterdam, January 9, 2020. (Cnaan Liphshiz/JTA) Dan de vorm. Ik behandel dit boek met mijn literaire leesclub, dus moet ik er ook naar kijken als een literaire roman. Maar dat niveau vind ik matig. De redacteur en/of vertaler hebben niet echt hun best gedaan om de herinneringen van Selma bij te schaven tot romankwaliteit.Though there are no concrete numbers about the participation of Jews in organized resistance activities, “the actual number is higher than what was believed for decades after World War II,” Barnouw told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Selma’s story is one of huge courage. She has written of her experiences in a memoir called My Name is Selma, and we thought that the best person to talk to her about her story was Ariana Neumann – whose own family were persecuted in such a similar way.

Selma Van De Perre was just a young woman when World War II broke out in Europe. She remembers the day when her older brother came home with the news. She declined and, spooked, told her boss. But he convinced her to meet with her admirer and steal his identity papers. Selma managed it, unscathed. Selma van de Perre-Velleman (born 7 June 1922) is a Dutch–British resistance fighter. [2] During the Second World War, she worked as a courier, a term that at the time acquired a specific connotation as "messenger of the resistance".Being in the resistance “maybe sounds scary and dangerous, and it is, but it also gets mundane,” she said. Selma van de Perre is interviewed about her book at the National Holocaust Museum, Jan. 9, 2020. (Cnaan Liphshiz)