This is an interesting look at the war from the eyes of someone who lived it
Due to the subject matter, elements of the book were very hard to read
An emotional informative read

An engaging story of a remarkable life - I’d highly recommend reading this, which covers Selma’s early life and family, her work in the Dutch Resistance, time in Ravensbrück camp and then liberation and later life. It’s accessibly written, not showing off or preachy, it’s as if you’re listening to Selma speak to you.

I received a free ARC copy of this via NetGalley and the publishers, in return for an unbiased review. Apologies for the delay in providing this.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read this lady's amazing story.
Other reviewers have given much detail and information about the content. Suffice to say - read it, learn from it, be amazed and be greatful that we are so lucky to be living in 2022.

I was interested to read about the war in Europe and I'm so grateful that I picked this book!

Salma is a Dutch Jewish, with loving family, who survived Holocaust. After using up her luck by faking her identity and working as a resistance, she was arrested and sent to camps at last. She experienced hell there as you imagine, but she never lost hope and strong willpower.

Even though she was a political prisoner as she succeeded to fake her identity and passed as a non-Jewish, what she experienced in the camps is too crucial, my heart ached so many times while I was reading this.

Salma kept using "murdered" throughout the book, which left a big impact everytime it was used.
I felt Salma didn't dive into herself deeply and that kept the story a bit easier to read for me without getting too emotional. I liked how she wrote about her struggle of depression and survivor's feelings after the war.
This story is full of sorrow, however it is also about courage, willpower, friendship and love. I highly recommend it.

This is a remarkable, emotional and sensational memoir of one of the few jewish survivors of WW2. We learn about her experiences and her life in world war 2 and her words of the atrocities that she experienced. This book was so well written and emotional. Thank you so much Selma for sharing your story.

What an inspirational book and how brave she was during an incredibly difficult time. I found her story very relevant to modern history and would recommend reading this book to everyone interested in this dark and evil time.

Selma van de Perre is a Holocaust and Ravensbrück camp survivor and in this book, she tells her experience of the war starting from her early childhood, her memories of the war as a young woman growing up in the Netherlands and her eventual separation form her family. her work in the Resistance and her capture.

This was a really interesting look at the war from the eyes of someone who truly lived it, experiences the trauma of losing family members and almost dying herself and finding ways to rebuild her life afterwards. The tone of this book is very conservational and Selma's story is an easy one to follow and understand. Her love for her family really comes through in every word she writes about them which makes it all the more heartbreaking when we know they didn't survive the war.

Selma's work in the Resistance was interesting to follow though I felt at times, she almost rushed through her stories and I would have loved some deep dives into particular trips she had to take undercover. I think Selma herself seems really humble about her war efforts and it seems like she really doesn't understand what an extraordinary woman she is!

The time in the concentration camp was hard to read about and knowing Selma was at death's door so often, it's just amazing to think about the strength and fortitude she displayed to keep going, to keep getting up every day never knowing if she was ever going to be saved.

I definitely think Selma kept the readers at arm's reach in this book, and I'm not sure if I really understood who she was deep down (for example Edith Eger's The Choice, I really felt like I knew Edith and her personality). But also I find this extremely understandable as Selma is telling us about an extremely traumatic time in her life that she might not want to deep dive into too much,
and she's also a very old woman now too so this style of storytelling was probably easier too!

I really liked that Selma also put an emphasis on how hard it was to keep going after the war and the depression she struggled with and that she knew other people struggled with as well. And the fact that many survivors were told to just 'keep living' and not to think about the atrocity that had happened to them and their families. As well, Semla briefly described the trauma young Jewish children experienced both living during the war as well as from being separated from parents at a young age, loving their foster parents and then bein returned to parents who were, tragically, all but strangers to them. And that many children never really got over this.

This is a really wonderful read full of sadness and heartbreak but also full of love, friendship and survival. What a lady!

Before starting this review I will say that as this is a based on true events told from a personal account so it does make for a really difficult read. I cannot quite put into words emotions that ran through me whilst reading this.

Selma is a jewish girl who became a member of the resistance during WWII, and survived Ravensbruck. The courage it must have taken her to witness and live through this horror is unimaginable.

This is a must read there are lessons throughout this book, but Selma’s spirit showed me that you can live through something atrocious and leave without bitterness. I hope to never forgot that it. This remarkable book will remain with me forever.

Thank you to the publishers for give it me a opportunity to read it.

My Name Is Selma is the straight forward account of a very brave young Dutch Jewish woman's experiences in occupied Netherlands, how she became involved with the Resistance Fighters and survived by using fake identity papers. Selma's story tells of her life before the occupation and also of how she managed to build a new life for herself after the war.

This is a truly remarkable story, told very matter of fact, there is no embellishment of the facts. This is Selma's story to tell in her own words, and it feels like they are the words of a real person.

I was given a copy of My Name Is Selma by NetGalley and the publishers in return for an unbiased review.

Thank you to Netgalley and Random House UK, Transworld Publishers for the arc of My Name Is Selma.

This is a remarkable, emotional and sensational memoir of one of the few jewish survivors of WW2. We learn about her experiences and her life in world war 2 and what happened which was from hiding refugess to her travels and even leaflet handing out. I really loved this book, this was an amazing memoir to read, i definitely recommend to all in which like to read true life stories especially about world war 2.

5 star reads for me! Thank you Selma for letting us read your experiences!⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

This was an easy read in that the sentence structure and chapters flowed, but for me lacked any emotion. I never found a connection between the events and Selma - it was like she was narrating rather than giving her feelings about the situations she was in, which was very disappointing.

My Name is Selma is an honest account of a Jewish resistance fighter. What I liked about her account was the fact that it opened my eyes to something I had never considered – the fact that there was a Jewish resistance.

This is not a sensationalised account so not every element is fast-paced action. This was something I liked though because it was true to life.

Her account, and others like it are incomprehensible to us but that is why I think it is important that books like this continue to be published.

“I’m sitting here in my quiet house in London and looking at a photo taken in 1940. It’s of my mother, younger sister and me. We’re relaxing in Aunt Sara’s garden in Amsterdam, which, at that moment, was my perfect peaceful spot…A model image of family time: loving, secure, comfortable, predictable. There’s no hint in our faces of what was to come in the following three years: the deaths of my father, mother and Clara; my grandma; Aunt Sara, her husband Arie and their two sons; and so many other family members.

None of these deaths were due to natural causes or accidents. They were the results of the atrocities that were already spreading across Europe when the photo was taken, and which would soon infiltrate the Netherlands. Before these catastrophic events, we hadn’t comprehended what a privilege it was to lead an anonymous life. I can still hardly believe that people who should have remained unremarkable ended up memorialised on lists and monuments – because they had fallen victim to the most systemic mass murder the world has ever known.”

I think the passage above is reflective of Selma’s style without and shows her unflinching approach to their topic of her families murders.

Selma tells us how before the Nazis being Jewish wasn’t really part of her identity because she and her family weren’t practicing Jews. During the war Selma found herself participating actively in the resistance movement at great personal risk. My Name is Selma tells of her extraordinary bravery even when she was arrested as a political prisoner and sent to a concentration camp.

What is striking about Selma is her focus on positivity and enjoying life despite the deep sadness she must feel at times.

An exceptional lady.

Selma's story is both heartbreaking and inspiring, I was captivated from the first page and could hardly put the book down, finishing it in just two sittings. She tells the story of being Jewish in occupied Netherlands, working for the resistance movement and her time in ravensbruk concentration camp. It was interesting to learn about the Dutch resistance movement which often isn't mentioned. Overall it is a beautifully written book telling a story of a bold and brave women who had such a great will to survive.

My thanks to Selma van de Perre, Netgalley and Random House UK for a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

My Name Is Selma is the incredible story of Selma van de Perre, a young Jewish Dutch woman at the time of World War II, who took part in the resistance movement in the Netherlands, Belgium and France during the Nazi occupation. From Selma's daring travels delivering resistance pamphlets, to hiding refugees and to her eventual arrest, we learn about Selma's experience during the war.

What an incredible story! I have read a number of survivor accounts during my time as a history and RE teacher, but this is the first I have read about a member of the resistance. Whilst I knew that Selma survived (obviously), I was on the edge of my seat on a number of occasions as things were turning very bad. Selma certainly did have a lot of luck at that time.

Selma does detail harrowing parts of her experiences, but does so in a censored way. She does not go into great detail, which I actually think is a good thing. As an educator, we are taught not to sensationalise the harrowing images and experiences from the Holocaust.

Would definitely recommend to anyone wanting to know more about the resistance and female political prisoners of the Nazis.

Selma had me sucked in from reading the first couple of sentences, I honestly feel it's a book that everyone should read..

The experiences she had are some that we could never understand or imagine happening to us or those around us.

Truly a survivors story that will keep you enthralled to the very end

Selma is "one of the few Dutch Jewish survivors of the Second World War," and this is her story as part of the Resistance and as a woman in the Ravensbruck concentration camp, the only one exclusively for women.
This book taught me about the Jewish Resistance, which I wasn't aware of, and I also wasn't aware of a concentration camp only for women. Truth be told it's not a topic I usually search for, but I think the reason why I choose to read and review this book was Selma's face (as a 98-year old now) on the cover. I wanted to know her story.
As for the book, it reads well and I devoured it in one day. However, if it tried to keep the reader tense, for me it failed to do so, for example in the missions she fulfills as part of the Resistance. The book reads as a series of anecdotes, and there are so many names I kept losing track of who's who.
Having said that, Selma’s story is one of courage and, as she says herself, luck, and the horrors she portrays should not be forgotten.

Many thanks to NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

My Name is Selma is a memoir. But I’m hesitant to use that word. I read a lot of memoirs, I enjoy the insight and the character development that comes from hearing history from someone who lived through it; someone who, despite it all, survived.
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This book was incredible. It didn’t feel like I was reading, I felt that I was sitting with Selma, a cup of tea in hand, listening to her story. The story of her life in the Netherlands during the occupation.
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Selma was 20 when she found herself alone and working for the Resistance, her family had been split, her brothers in different arms of the army, her father moved to a ‘work’ camp and her mother and sister in hiding. She worked for the resistance for years until an oversight landed her in in prison. Throughout, Selma’s story there is a constant undertone of hope, a demand to survive.
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I know it’s hard to put a star rating on non-fiction so I won’t, but I am highly recommending it to all of you. If you want to read something uplifting, horrific but uplifting all the same, read this. And treasure Selma Van De Perre.

It astounds me that Selma has taken this long before she would write her autobiographical experience of her life during the Second World War but I suspect from her writing that it has taken this long to be able to put pen to paper and relive the experience. It is clearly written and very informative but lacks intensity of feeling for me. I found it fascinating that she felt her life was saved so many times by gut feeling and luck. Her description of sleepless nights indicates that obviously what she survived had a deep impact on her but the writing is almost stark. Perhaps it was the only way she could finally share her horrendous experiences during the war. To fear death and have to spend many years denying her Jewish heritage must have been unbearable. Obviously a very brave woman to whom so many must be grateful.
Many thanks to Netgalley/Selma van de Perre/Random House UK for a digital copy of this title. All opinions expressed are my own.

This is an amazing story of an amazing woman. She has dodged death several times in her long life and is still active and an inspiration to us all. If she could survive and conquer all she went through then we can too.
A wonderful woman with a sad and turbulent history.
Well done Selma.

This is a remarkable story about a truly remarkable woman. Selma describes a less known side of the Holocaust - the resistance fighters. Selma talks not just about the story of the genocide but also about the small things in life which make it a very personal story. I highly recommend this book. It will stay with me for a long time.