June 7, 1922 Selma Velleman is born in Alkmaar, Netherlands, the second to last of four children, to Barend Levi Velleman (a theatre man) and Femmetje Velleman-Spier (a milliner)
Her older brothers were Louis and David, and her younger sister, Clara
Moved to Zandvoort as baby and moved back to Alkmaar in 1926 at age 4
Had aunts and uncles around from mom’s side that made up the family
Moved to Amsterdam in 1928
April 3, 1928 Clara is born
Lived in poverty for a time, though not many knew it because they received hand-me-downs from relatives
Selma is sick with pneumonia and pleurisy, and a Dr. Menco comes and drains the fluid from her lungs, she is then sent to a sanatorium for 8 months
Family moves to Diemen into a much nicer house in early 1929 before the stock market crash in October 1929, which sees the loss of her father’s job and move back to Amsterdam by the end of the year for better employment opportunities
Selma meets Greet Brinkhuis and befriends her
They stay at the apartment in Amsterdam until 1936
Selma notes what a free thinker her father is, and how his liberal ideals helped shape her education/access to education
In 1936, emigrants from Germany begin to arrive as war breaks out across Europe, but people feel relatively sheltered in the Netherlands, which had remained neutral during the First World War
Selma’s brother David even travels to Austria in 1938 to wed an Austria Jewish woman hoping that Dutch citizen might help her survive the war
Selma is still attending school at this time and it seems to be that at least in the Netherlands there is little to worry about and she even goes on a trip abroad to England during the summer of 1939 with her school
In September 1939, Britain declares war on Germany, but again, it seems to be that the Netherlands are generally unconcerned
Conscripted to join the army at 18 in the Netherlands, Selma’s brother David ends up early on during the beginnings of conflict in the medical service that is later known as the Princess Irene Brigade and stationed in the UK after 1940
At the same time, Louis has joined the merchant navy, the Holland Stoomboot Maatschappij, aka, the Holland Steamship Company
May 10, 1940, Germany crosses the border into the Netherlands, as well as Belgium and Luxembourg without first declaring war, which seemed a big faux pas on Germany’s part
Louis Ends up going with the company out of the IJ port in Amsterdam to sea the same day as the beginning of the occupation
On May 14, 1940, the Netherlands surrender
Life seems to go on as usual for a while, and Selma even begins life as a young woman, seeking a job to help her family after she completes her studies
Jews were no longer permitted to work for non-Jewish people
Government jobs were also restricted (at the end of 1940, all Jewish people working for the state are fired
Selma eventually finds a job working for a man names Mittwoch who owned a small fashion house, but he is a difficult man to work for, and eventually she quits, and starts working as a jack-of-all-trades for the De Jong family, a move that saves her life
In January 1941, all Jewish people with a full set of Jewish grandparents are required to register with the Dutch authority
In February 1941, the February Strike in support of the Dutch Jews begins, but is quickly squashed by German soldiers
This is the first time Selma begins to see murmurings of a resistance
February 13, 1941 the Jewish Council is set up by the Germans, and what initially seems like a way to mitigate German aggression quickly devolves
Barbed wire is erected around the Jewish quarter
By April of that year, Jewish people are prohibited from taking public transit, theatres, cinemas, hotels, restaurants, and swimming pools (come summer)
Radios were confiscated
Between August 8 and 11, 1941, all Jewish people were required to register any and all property with Lippmann-Rosenthal Bank, a well respect Jewish bank known as the Liro which by that time had been seized by the Nazis
All possessions were confiscated
In September 1941, Jews were no longer allowed to attend schools unless they went to a Jewish school
On January 23, 1942, identity cards were stamped with a J to denote a Jewish person
On May 3, 1942 Jews are required to wear the Star of David or risk punishment or death
In June 1942, a strict curfew goes into effect, and anyone caught outside after 8PM is severely punished
On June 14, 1942, 700 Jews are rounded up in Amsterdam and transported to either Westerbork, a place that was originally a humanitarian effort to help with the influx of Jewish refugees in 1939, in the Netherlands, or Auschwitz in Poland
This is done via Amsterdam Central Station
In April 1942, Selma’s cousin Loutje is summoned to work in Eastern Europe, (a lie told to Jews before they were sent to extermination camps)
Loutje is murdered in 1943
June 7, 1942, Selma turns 20 and is “summoned” for work in Eastern Europe, and she gets a delay by feigning illness
She attempts to lengthen her delay for the summons by posing as a nurse, but they won’t allow her to delay twice
On her way to tell the De Jong’s that she can no longer work for them since she can put of the summons no longer, she meets their neighbor who runs a fur factory supplying the German troops, and when he says he will employ her so that she can fulfill her summons in Amsterdam, she narrowly escapes a harsh fate
Four months after her own summons, her father is called up to work in Drenthe, and on October 2, 1942 he goes to fulfill the summons, believing that if he went then his family would be safe. He is sent to Westerbork
Westerbork becomes the transit hub for Germany in the Netherlands for transporting Jews to extermination camps with trains leaving every Tuesday. 107,000 Jews were transferred from Westerbork to their deaths
The day that her father leaves to answer the summons, their apartment building is raided, and their neighbors taken, this is when Selma decides they must go into hiding
Selma finds a hiding place for her mother and sister Clara and sends them to Eindhoven, but Selma stays in Amsterdam
She stays with a family for a few days but they eventually make enough comments that they don’t want her there that she moves on, becoming temporarily homeless, but she eventually finds refuge with her Aunt Tini and Uncle Jaques
Her father is still in Westerbork at the time and sick with intense illness, and Selma takes the time to send him chocolates that he can bribe the guards with to stay longer in the infirmary
On her way to buy the chocolates on November 11, 1942, Selma gets word that the fur factory that she is still working at get raided
On December 6, 1942, Selma receives word that her father has been taken to Auschwitz, and unbeknownst to her, he is murdered the next day
Selma gets to know at the time Dientje Jesse and her husband Bob Jesse who were in the business of making and acquiring fake papers for their fellow Jews
Under Dientje’s guidance, Selma is slowly brought into the resistance
While staying with Tini and Jacques, Selma would find herself escaping to the building’s roof to hide during German inspections which became alarmingly frequent, and eventually led to Selma deciding to find other lodging
Selma decides the best thing to do it to dye her hair blond and assume a new identity, for a few months staying with a couple in the Jordaan until she bumps into her cousin’s friend Hartzog Hammelburg who offers a place to stay
This is ultimately ill-fated as Hartzog falls in love with Selma, who doesn’t feel the same way
When she leaves and finds Dientje Jesse again who finds her a new place to live in Lieden with Antje Holthuis and Mein Lubbe and brings her properly into the resistance
Selma dyes her hair blond and befriends Dr. Wim Storm who is he head of the Neurology department at the University Hospital, a man who dedicated his time during the German occupation of the Netherlands to hiding as many Jewish people as possible, delivered Jewish babies and helped people escape to Friesland, a Dutch province sympathetic to the Jewish plight
Wim’s partner, Ann de Lange also becomes friends with Selma, and it is through Ann that Selma helps in the distributions of De Vonk, a resistance newspaper
At this point in 1943, Selma takes on a new identity and goes by Wilhelmina Buter, an American student that had been visiting abroad but fled before the German occupation and left her identifying papers behind
Selma begins dipping her toe into resistance work when Antje asks her to deliver a few coded messages to a professor during their weekly chess games. At first Selma doesn’t realize that she is passing information in this manner, but later figures out what is going on, and as she begins to understand her role, the resistance starts to bring her more and more into the fold
Resistance groups were kept entirely separate from each other, fearing that larger resistance networks would crumble if and when people were captured and tortured for information. It was said that if a resistance fighter was captured, withstanding torture at the hand of Nazis for forty eight hours would hopefully be enough time for the cell to scatter and reform at a later time
Selma was part of a small group headed by Bob Jesse, husband of Dientje. They worked with Catholics in the south, resistance groups in Fiesland and Gelderlad and the LO, Landelijke Organisatie voor Hulp aan Onderduikers, the National Organization for People in Hiding
Selma, like many young women of the time across the entire European continent, served as a courier, traveling all over the Netherlands, and crossing the board into German occupied Belgium and France, with a suitcase of illegal documents, pamphlets, and newsletters. These papers also included information on planned strikes, and money and food stamps for other people in hiding
“The most remarkable thing was that most of time I barely gave a thought to my safety. I wanted to help, whatever the cost—that feeling was very strong. You can’t live in constant fear. Even fear is something to which you become accustomed. You have to set it aside and simply get on with what you are doing.”
Selma’s first foray into courier work was not without hiccups. Her first attempt to deliver illegal papers resulted in two German and two Dutch police officers stopping her to search her suitcase, but luckily they let her off without incident
Another time, on a train ride out of Amsterdam, her suitcase was stolen which ended with the train being stopped and searched for the culprit. Though the suitcase wasn’t returned, the encounter left Selma frazzled, and upon her return to Leiden, she discontinued her courier work for a while we she waited to see if her cover had been blown
All while running as a courier, Selma and the house she sheltered in were still subjected to random searched by Nazis, and Selma and Mein found themselves stuffed above a cabinet for hours, barely breathing as they waited for the all clear
It was also during this time that Selma had a brief flirtation with a young man named Wil, but nothing came of this as she later learned he had a fiancé that he hadn’t thought to mention
Selma ran fake documents and passports, and participated in the Westerweel Group of the resistance, which included Bob Jesse, Jan Kraayenhof de Leur, Joop Westerweel and his wife Wil who succeeded in smuggling out two hundred and fifty Jews from the Netherlands during the occupation.
Selma was able to visit her mother and sister Clara in Eindhoven, and continued to do this each month as she brought them a monthly stipend, but at the end of June 1943 Selma’s mother and Clara had been found out and transported to Westerbork. On July 2, 1943, they were murdered in Sobibor, Selma’s mother was fifty-three, and Clara only fifteen
After learning the news that her mother and sister had been captured, Selma throws herself into her work in the resistance, relocating to Utrecht
In December of 1943, Dutch citizens were required to pick up new identification and Selma adopts a new identity at this point, that of Margareta van der Kuit, a woman born on October 10, 1920 and had passed away. During this point of the German occupation of Europe, many people assumed new identities in this fashion
Her new identity allowed her more chances to help the resistance and brought her often times into Amsterdam, where Greet would house her in times of need
She also traveled to Paris during this time in April 1944. She was requested to cross the border into Paris to hand off an envelope to someone at the German headquarters. This mission would aid in freeing some resistance fighters that had been captured
She flirted her way into the headquarters, asked for her contact, exchanged envelopes and slipped out unnoticed, heading back to Bob Jesse with the information she had collected. She learned after the war the people in question had survived
Selma kept her tools she needed for her part in the resistance under her bad, but was looking to find a better way to keep these things secret and safe. A talented carpenter agreed to help build her a bookshelf with fake drawers for her to keep her illegal fingerprint kits and equipment for attaching photos to IDs, her ink pads and stamps, rations cards and such in
On June 18, 1944, the carpenter called to say he had completed the project, she would just need to pick it up, and she agreed to meet him at Bob Jesse’s house which was closer to the train station where the carpenter was coming from
The Grüne Polizei, the green police, came knocking at the door. Bob had already been arrested, having been spotted on the train, and though Selma attempted to escape, she too was captured
The group in Bob’s house all lied through their teeth, saying that Selma, (always referred to as Marga), was only a friend that had come by for lunch and nothing more, but she was still taken to prison.
At this point, Selma almost completely vanishes into her assumed persona, fearing that if she thinks about anything to do with her life as Selma, she will let something slip. She even remarks that during her time of imprisonment that many of the women of Ravensbrück stay at arm’s length from her because she seemed so secretive
On June 20, 1944m Selma is transported to Amstelveenseweg, awaiting deportation. During her entire imprisonment, Selma is always held as a political prisoner, the Nazis never suspecting she is actually a Jewish resistance fighter
She was interrogated for a week, but never cracked, being sentenced to Kriegsdauer, or imprisonment for the remainder of the war
Bob didn’t fair as well, and under threat of harm to a young mother and her two children, Bob gave up the location of a meeting that was happening among some the Jewish resistance cells
Selma is relocated from the Amsterdam prison she had been taken to, to Camp Vught on July 26, 1944. She knew some of the women she came across here, like Wil Westerweel, wife of Joop Westerweel.
Forced to give up their belongings, they were made to strip and shower, given blue overalls, a head scarf, and clogs. Herded into barracks, at Camp Vught, they each had a bed to sleep in; this would not be the case later in Ravensbrück
Selma is sent to work in a gas mask factory, and realizes that even here the resistance is alive when fellow prisoners encourage her weakly attach the closing screws of the masks, and that inspections of the masks are easily passed. After an injury, Selma is put in charge of overseeing the final production of the gas masks and ensures that they are up to snuff with loose screws and eye pieces
On September 6, 1944, after a quashed uprising at Camp Vught from the men’s side of the camp, and after the execution of at least two hundred of those that participated, Selma and her fellow prisoners are put on trains and transported to Ravensbrück.
After three, long grueling days on the trains, the women arrived and the only all women concentration camp, fifty miles north of Berlin
The first prisoners to arrive in Ravensbrück saw the infamous concentration camp on May 18, 1939. One hundred and thirty=two thousand women would be imprisoned here, with roughly ninety-two thousand of those dying from hunger, disease and execution. The women and children were forced into barracks meant to house two hundred and fifty people, crowding fifteen hundred people into them. Of those that survived, unimaginable cruelty was wrought against these women and children, including medical experimentation and sterilizations of thousands. Those over the age of fifty-two, those that were ill, and those no longer able to work were sent just outside the camp to Uckermark to be murdered, until a crematorium was built within the walls of Ravensbrück in 1943, with the Nazis using the gas chamber in early autumn 1944.
After being forced once again to shower, and then “inspected” by a “doctor” they were given grey striped prison dresses, and Selma was put into the “red triangle” group, or the group of political prisoners and numbered. Selma was 66947.
Starved, forced to work, and pushed three and four women to a bed, all the women simply focused on surviving.
The water pumps supplied fetid water that cause they women to contract dysentery after drinking, and Selma suffered many recurring episodes, almost dying from her illness.
Selma was able to trade bread for a pair of long johns, and those kept her warm enough to keep surviving the harsh winter
Selma started working for the Siemens factory where they would be making armaments for the Nazis, but Selma didn’t have steady enough hands to be truly useful, and made an effort to be helpful in other ways, answering phones for Herr Seefeld who oversaw the factory workers.
Selma contracted typhus at this point, and had to ride it out, and as she finally came out on the other side, she was requested to work as a secretary under Herr Seefeld at his new assignment at another Siemens factory
Because of her work at the Siemens factory, and the other women that worked there, a barracks was eventually erected closer to the factory where they stayed in November 1944.
By January 1945, Russian armies had begun liberating camps, and Ravensbrück was flooded with new prisoners. At this point, the based camp was sleeping 5-6 women per bed.
The gas chamber that had been installed in 1943 and had been in use since late 1944 was joined by another gas chamber that had been brought from Auschwitz. Selma writes that the women could smell the massacres of hundred day and night. The Germans were determined to leave as few witnesses of their atrocities as possible.
On April 14, 1945, news of liberations had reached the women’s ears, but still the daily gas chambers thinned their numbers. Forced to march from the Siemens factory where they had been placed, they arrived at the main camp, and stayed there not knowing what would occur for nine days. They lived in fear every day that this day would be the day they were murdered.
April 23, 1945, they were ordered to stand for roll call then marched out of the camp. Selma reckons that there were only 190 women left in her group by this point. Walking on the road, a young man pulled up in car, jumping out and saying that he was with the Swedish Red Cross and that they were being rescued, and that buses were on the way
They waited, feeling that the information could hardly be true that they had been rescued. The next morning, finally, military trucks rolled up to transport those that had not gone back to the main camp. Those that had would be forced to march on April 27, 1945 in a death march. On April 30, 1945 the Russians entered Ravensbrück, and found only three thousand people left
In a cruel twist of fate, as the newly freed prisoners were being transported in the military trucks, allied forces bombed them overhead, and while Selma survived, others did not survive the escape to Sweden.
Through Denmark, then by boat to Malmö, Sweden, the prisoners were greeted by King Gustaf V. They were taken to rest in a museum, given baths and clean clothes and allowed to rest.
They were finally able to get help from a Dutch delegation interested in helping the women get reunited with what family they had left, and for the first time in years, Selma was able to reclaim her name, Selma Velleman, hoping that when the list of names arrived in London that one of her brothers would be alive and find her.
A telegram finally arrives for Selma from her brother David. He was alive and looking for her, their father, mother and sister.
On May 5, 1945, the Netherlands were liberated. Selma made her way to Stockholm, working to help hospitalized people get whatever they needed, but she still wished to be reunited with her remaining family. Her job transformed into one where she helped her fellow Dutch citizens back the Netherlands when flights finally started up again. Selma finally took a flight back to her home country in the Netherlands in August of 1945 to meet her brother David. Selma stayed with Greet and her family, who had survived the war.
On August 31, 1945, Selma was reunited with David, but Louis was still out at sea. During this time, Selma learned the fate of her father, mother and Clara
Selma and David stay in the Netherlands for a time, but in November Selma gets word that she would accepted at the Dutch Ministry of War in London, and leaves to go to London with David.
On November 14, 1945, Selma arrives at the Dutch Ministry of War in The Hague and was then flown to Croydon, as there were no civilian flights to London at that time
Selma starts working in London, and begins a new life. She entertains a few flirtations, and eventually meets her husband Hugo on June 7, 1949 while working at the BBC. She also takes the time to study anthropology and sociology at the London School of Economics where she gets her degree. She becomes a teacher, ending up at Sacred Heart High School in Hammersmith.
In 1955, Selma marries Hugo, becoming Selma van de Perre, eventually having their son, Jocelin on June 23, 1957.
Hugo dies on August 28, 1979 from cancer, and afterwards, Selma adopts Hugo’s journalist work. She spends twenty years as a correspondent writing about art and cultural event for AVRO/Televizer
Since 1995, Selma has returned to Amsterdam every year to lay flowers at the ceremony at the Museumplein for the Dutch Ravensbrück Committee, and spends a week in Ravensbrück, passing on stories to the Dutch teachers there for future generations.

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