My name is Selma : the remarkable memoir of a Jewish resistance fighter and Ravensbrck survivor

During the Holocaust, at least three fourths of the Jewish population of the Netherlands was murdered, or died of illness or exposure in concentration camps. Selma van de Perre was one of the few survivors. At the age of 20 she took on a false identity so as not to be recognized as a Jew, joined the Dutch resistance, but was eventually captured and sent to the all-women’s concentration camp, Ravensbrück, as a political prisoner. She credits her survival to using her wits and sheer luck. After the camp was liberated, she was able to reclaim her real name and identity as a Jew. She wrote this memoir at the age of 98, “as a testament to our fight against inhumanity.” The level of storytelling is top notch. Perre is an excellent, compelling writer, detailing the atrocities committed by the Nazis, the acts of bravery by the resistance, and the lives and deaths of camp prisoners that she came to know.