A Jewish Holocaust survivor who fought in the Dutch resistance has spoken about the moment she came terrifying close to being caught by the Nazis while travelling under a false name.

I find it astonishing myself,” she admits. “But it was easy. I was incredibly scared going into that office, walking past the flags and uniforms, but I smiled as if there was nothing the matter, asked for the person and he came down straight away. My strategy was to flirt with the soldiers in the waiting room. They responded and gave suggestive looks, so it was clear my plan was working. In 1947, Van de Perre secured a job at the Dutch embassy in London with the assistance of her brother David. [3] Van de Perre went on to study anthropology and sociology. After graduating, Van de Perre became a teacher of sociology and mathematics at Sacred Heart High School, Hammersmith, London. She subsequently began work at the BBC Radio Netherlands as a journalist. There she met her future husband, Hugo Van de Perre, a Belgian journalist. [3] He was the son of the founder of De Standaard, Alfons Van de Perre. They married in 1955. When her husband died suddenly in 1979, she continued his work as a foreign correspondent. Until her retirement, Van de Perre worked as a journalist for the BBC and as a correspondent for AVRO Televizier and De Standaard. She later became a British citizen. 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.”

Beerights

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.

Mrs van de Perre moved to the UK in 1945 at the behest of the Dutch Ministry of War and met her husband, the journalist Hugo van De Perre, while working at the BBC. She later became a teacher. This story has been held by Selma for decades, it's a story that should be heard and a book that should be available in every secondary school. 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. My Czech friend told me, ‘Keep your chin up’... to think of nice things. I learnt to push bad thoughts away.”She explains: “I dyed my hair blonde and pushed everything about Selma away. I stopped thinking about my past, my family, although I worried I would talk in my sleep and give myself up. The wartime hero has received both Covid vaccine jabs, and offered a pointed piece of perspective for young people living through the pandemic.

It was a job,” Selma recalls, simply. But the stakes were terrifyingly high and near-misses frequent. 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.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. 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.