My name is Selma : the remarkable memoir of a Jewish resistance fighter and Ravensbruck survivor / Selma van de Perre ; translated by Alice Tetlye-Paul and Anna Asbury.
Publisher:
Bantam press,
Copyright Date:
2020
Description:
215 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 23 cm
Prologue -- The artist and the milliner: My family -- Jumping over the ditches: My childhood -- Second-class citizens: The occupation -- Away from home: A family in hiding -- Bleached hair: In the resistance -- Secret drawers: My arrest -- Blue overalls: Camp Vught -- The passageway of death: Ravensbrück -- My real name: The liberation: Living life: London -- Remembering the dead -- Epilogue -- Translators' note.
Summary:
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'. In July 1944 her luck ran out. She was transported to Ravensbruck women's concentration camp as a political prisoner. Unlike her parents and sister - who, she would later discover, died in other camps - she survived by using her alias, pretending to be someone else. It was only after the war ended that she was allowed to reclaim her identity and dared to say once again: My name is Selma. Now, at ninety-eight, Selma remains a force of nature. Full of hope and courage, this is her story in her own words. ---Source other than Library of Congress.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.