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

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In 1942, when I was 20, I was called up to go to a work camp. My father said, “No, you don’t go,” and he gave me some chocolate that made me go to the toilet all the time. He called the doctor, who wrote me a note. I soon went to work in a fur factory, making gloves and things for German soldiers in the East. But then my father got his call-up to go to a work camp. I said to my mother, “We have to go into hiding.” 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. Persecution of Jews intensified, until rounding up became frequent. Selma knew little about death camps, but when her actor father was taken to a work camp in May 1942, she had to act. One day rumors began spreading around the camp that they were going to be freed. At first, De Perre said they did not believe the news.

The wartime hero has received both Covid vaccine jabs, and offered a pointed piece of perspective for young people living through the pandemic. Her interrogators didn’t question her identity, though one asked why her hair was dyed – her roots were showing. I decided to flirt with the soldiers at the entrance, creating the impression I needed to deliver something to a relative, a brother perhaps, but at the same time enjoyed being the center of attention for a few young men,” she recalled.

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I speak to students so they can pass it along to their children, because I think it’s very, very important that our stories are getting through in the future so that it won’t happen [again],” she said.

De Perre explained that they were short of people helping in the resistance because so many of them were already being imprisoned or had to go into hiding themselves. The Nazis however eventually caught De Perre. She was brought to the police station where she was interrogated for several days before being sent to a concentration camp in the Netherlands.

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Selma had learnt enough about the resistance to find someone who could hide her mum and sister with a family, but it was too costly for her to stay with them. 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. We were liberated on April 23, 1945, by the Swedish Red Cross. We were weak, and so scared when we were taken out of the main camp and left standing outside the gates. We thought we were going to be killed, too, and it was a terrible feeling after all we’d experienced and survived. She repeatedly relied on her instincts to skirt disaster. “I didn’t allow the fear to overwhelm me – the desire to thwart the Nazis and help people in danger was stronger,” she writes. The costs included stomach aches and a traumatizing state of constant vigilance.

In 1947 kreeg ze op voorspraak van haar broer David een baan op de Nederlandse ambassade in Londen. Ze ging antropologie en sociologie studeren en kreeg een baan bij de BBC Wereldomroep. Daar leerde ze haar latere man kennen, de Belgische journalist Hugo Van de Perre, zoon van de oprichter van De Standaard, Alfons Van de Perre. Ze trouwden in 1955. Na haar afstuderen werd zij lerares sociologie en wiskunde aan de Sacred Heart High School, Hammersmith, Londen. Toen haar man in 1979 plotseling overleed, zette ze zijn werk als buitenlandcorrespondent voort. Tot haar pensioen werkte ze als journalist voor onder meer de BBC en als correspondent voor Avro Televizier en De Standaard. Ze werd Brits staatsburger. 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 ] On one occasion, van de Perre had to infiltrate the German headquarters in Paris to deliver an envelope to a resistance spy and return some correspondence he would give her. She was told it was vital to the rescue of captured fighters being held in France. Selma van de Perre was seventeen when World War Two began. Until then, being Jewish in the Netherlands had been of no consequence. But by 1941 this simple fact had become a matter of life or death. Several times, Selma avoided being rounded up by the Nazis. Then, in an act of defiance, she 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 travelled around the country delivering newsletters, sharing information, keeping up morale - doing, as she later explained, what 'had to be done'.Selma van de Perre sagt am Ende des Buches, dass sie dieses Buch geschrieben hat, damit man nicht vergisst. Dieses Schreiben gegen das Vergessen finde ich unglaublich wichtig und bemerkenswert. Ich kann nur immer wieder betonen, dass es bald keine lebenden Zeitzeug*innen der Shoah mehr geben wird. Deshalb ist ein Buch wie "Mein Name ist Selma" so wichtig. Wir müssen diese Zeitzeugenberichte lesen. Wir dürfen nicht vergessen. Wir dürfen nicht vergeben. 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.” For her, meanwhile, forced labour in the Siemens factory nearby offered some protection and close friendships. De Perre said she considers it very important her and other holocaust survivors to speak out and tell their story to the coming generations.