Dan Snow's History Hit - Selma Van De Perre

Episode Date: September 4, 2020

Selma Van De Perre joined me on the pod to talk about her life as a Dutch Jewish Resistance fighter during the Second World War. She joined the resistance under the pseudonym Margareta van der Kuit, and she forged documents and delivered them throughout the entire country. She escaped the Nazis on multiple occasions, but in July of 1944 she was betrayed and transported via Camp Vught to Ravensbrück. Unlike her sister and parents, she survived the horrors of the camp. During that time no one knew that she was Jewish, and no one knew her real name.Subscribe to History Hit and you'll get access to hundreds of history documentaries, as well as every single episode of this podcast from the beginning (400 extra episodes). We're running live podcasts on Zoom, we've got weekly quizzes where you can win prizes, and exclusive subscriber only articles. It's the ultimate history package. Just go to historyhit.tv to subscribe. Use code 'pod1' at checkout for your first month free and the following month for just £/€/$1.

Hi everybody, welcome to Dan Snow's History Hit. This is one of those very special episodes of the podcast where I talk to someone, a veteran, someone who has lived through and made history. Selma van der Peer was a young Dutch woman, a teenager, when war broke out in 1939. She never considered the possibility of her country being occupied by one of its neighbours. She grew up in a family of Jewish descent but with secular humanist leanings. And everything changed when Germany invaded Holland in 1940. She found herself a fugitive running from home, her family interned eventually to be murdered, she would find out. And she eventually found herself joining the Dutch resistance. It's a truly heroic story, which she told me when I sat down with her the other day. She's 97 years old now, incredibly bright, an enormous pleasure to sit down and listen to.

She was, well, I won't spoil the story, but let's just say it's an incredible tale of heroics and survival under occupation and under the threat of genocide. I'm shooting a series of these interviews at the moment, of which this is one, with remarkable women veterans of the Second World War. Resistance fighters in Europe, women who served in uniform in the UK and beyond. This is just one of them. To watch that documentary when it comes out, to watch our hundreds of other documentaries that we have, please go to HistoryHit.tv. HistoryHit.tv, use the code POD1, P-O-D-1, you'll get a month for free, and your second month is one pound, euro or dollar. Your subscriptions go directly towards finding people like Selma, filming them,

recording them for posterity, creating in-depth history programmes where people like Selma are given the space and time to tell their story. And I'm very, very proud of the team for this documentary we're producing at the moment. So go and sign up to History Hit. In the meantime, though, have a listen to Selma van der Peer.

Enjoy. Selma, tell me about your childhood in the Netherlands. Well, I was born as one of four children, the third one. I had two elder brothers, 11 and 13 years older than me, so they're dead already. And a sister who was born six years after me. So, my father and mother, my father was an artist and a theatre man and we had a tremendously nice family life, except that we were up and down financially always, depending on past work. But I had a very happy childhood otherwise. I often think when, you know, we didn't have many toys or

any holidays abroad or anything like that in those days, but we were a very nice family. When I was born, the religion was already gone in our family. When did you first start to worry that the war, which had begun in the east, in Poland, when did you first start to worry it might affect your lives? When the war broke out in Holland on the 10th of May 1940, in Holland on the 10th of May 1940 my brother Louis came home and he was already with the Merchant Navy and the younger brother was with the Army in the medical services and he said it's war it's war and you know well I said let me sleep. I was still the schoolgirl and didn't

affect me. Well it did because we were very worried about my brothers of course when in the war, when in the four days we were fighting, the Dutch were fighting and we never knew about my brothers. We were very scared that they had been taken prisoner like so many of the Dutch boys had, who were in the army or in the navy. But they were not. My younger brother David was stationed in Zeeland, Middelburg, and they were told when the Dutch capitulated, they were told to go to Belgium, and when Belgium capitulated they were told to go to Belgium and when Belgium capitulated they were told to go to

France and from France they had to go to England. So that's how he got in England and my elder brother was five days still with his ship lying in Emyden, the port. But then they went to England as well. Amouyden, the port, but then they went to England as well. But funny thing was that day when he told us that morning of the 10th of May and we he had to be back at six o'clock on his ship and that was lying in the Ey, that's the port of Amsterdam actually, and my father decided because there was no trams going or anything like that, decided to take him back to the ship.

And I joined him and an uncle came and my sister came and we joined him. We never thought, I often think of it now, we never thought of going on to the ship as well. Were you scared of what the occupation would bring? Well, not really very much, no, because we really didn't know. We knew what happened in Poland and in Eastern Europe a bit, but not very much. The Germans were very clever, you know. We didn't know very much, well, at least I didn't know very much of what happened.

We had the German refugees of course coming into Holland but they didn't tell they said how bad it was financially and things like that so one wasn't really that worried in the beginning if I'm honest. We were worried I was worried about my brothers and my parents as well because as I, we thought we may have fallen in German hands. The Germans, the regulations they brought out against the Jews and the Dutch, actually was only starting later on in the year, at the end of 41 really and so up till then I was at school still so you just went to school in fact I had to do an exam. Do you remember the moment when you suddenly felt that things were turning bad? The moment started when things started first of all was when Jews were not allowed to go in the

swimming pool anymore or in the cinema or anything like that. That's the first thing. And then, of course, a bit later on you had the yellow star which you had to wear with Jew on it. And that of course was very bad. I remember that broke my heart. That was very very bad. I kept my band back against my, or my school back against my shoulder all the time. That was very bad. And then of course, very big thing, because all my friends were, well nine out of ten were non-Jewish, they weren't allowed to come anymore in Jewish houses. And Jewish persons were not allowed to go into non-Jewish persons' houses anymore. And so all

these things did it. Yeah, I can remember those times. Did wearing the badge, how did other Dutch people treat you? Did they start to, was it just a German thing or did the other Dutch people start to reject you as well? No, no, they had to officially of course. No, several friends still care. I remember my father saying, great will come and he did during the whole war and several of the other people did as well. Yeah, but of course was very dangerous for them because they would have been sent to concentration camp probably if they would be found out. Yeah there was of course a certain amount of people not coming, the danger of it, but your friends and so still started, still came. When did you decide you were going to act, you were going to do something about this?

Oh I didn't decide for a long time, I mean, I didn't know you didn't. Don't forget we look back now from where we are in this day and age, but we didn't know about most things, you know. I'd never heard of a resistance movement. In 1942 though, people were called up, young men, and before that young men were lifted from their beds and sent to Mauthausen and other concentration camps. And that was very bad of course as well, we were very worried. The first time it affected me was when I got my call-up card on the 7th of June 1942 to register to go

to the main station to go to the East for a work camp. Work camps they were because I remember the first lot going a few months before that with violins and guitars and singing, you know, because they thought they were going to work out. Of course they were all going to be murdered. So the fact was that we didn't know. Perhaps few people might have known, but most people didn't know. The Germans were very, very clever.

They didn't want the people to resist, you know. Well, anyhow, I got that call up and my father said, oh no, you're not going ill. So he bought me some chocolate, special chocolate with stuff in it, chemical in it, so that my faces had blood in it and so on. He called the doctor and I was a week free. I was given an Ausweis, a piece of paper to tell me that I was free. But of course it was only for a week. Then I decided that perhaps if I, because you were free also, free not to have to go to a work camp,

if you were in a position that you were needed. So a friend had, I knew, she used to be a nurse, and so I borrowed a nursing outfit from her and I had to go and report in the south of Amsterdam and I did and it was that day and there was a big wooden table standing there outside with a woman behind it, a Jewish woman behind it and behind her, next to her, a German SS officer. And I thought, oh, I hope they're going to believe my story that I was a nurse, but it wasn't necessary because there was a queue, a long, long queue. It took hours to get to the table.

But by the time I wanted to tell my story, she said, oh, no, no good. You can't change from an ill receipt to an social so that not tomorrow morning at nine o'clock at Central Station so I was very disappointed and I went I was working then for mr. mrs. de Jong, because by that time you could only work for Jewish firms, and this was a paper firm, and they were very nice, and we got on very well.

And so I went back to them to tell them that I couldn't come anymore, that I had to go to a work camp. So I went there and they were standing near the fence in their garden, talking to the man next door. And he was a German refugee. And it turns out, he said to me when he heard my story, because I was telling him that I couldn't come anymore, and he said, why don't you come and work for me? I've got

a fur factory and you'll be free then. Because that was working for the Germans, the soldiers. And so I was free then not to go to the central station. And I started work at his factory the next morning. So you just didn't, you went to work at the fur factory and just never showed up for the train east? No, I don't think they checked it actually. It's unbelievable, yes, it's very illogical, I'm trying to tell you. Lots of things during the war are very illogical. But that man saved your life?

Yeah, of course, yes. And so you were working in the fur factory? Yeah, and then my father got his call up. By that time, we weren't allowed radios anymore. And I'm talking about the Jews, nor papers or anything. And so you were dependent on the Jewish council, because that was the only paper, the Jewish Chronicle,

that was published only paper, the Jewish Chronicle, that was published and sold. And they said that if the men went to work, wife and children would be free. And people started to believe it. Again, it's unbelievable, but people believed it. So my father thought it was best to go to the work camp. So he went, he went to the station and they were taken to the work camp and the same evening they were taken through to Westerbork which was the concentration camp through which people went if they were sent to Auschwitz. So he was there and that same evening there was this terrible collection of all Jewish people, or most of them, by trucks and vans, by the Germans and the Dutch police.

And it was dreadful, that was terrible. And, you know, because we were living in a building, six flats, and we could hear the noise and so on. And I thought that we were going to be collected as well, but we weren't very lucky again. Did you say goodbye to your father? Yes we said goodbye of course but we didn't think it was going to be goodbye forever and so I said to my mother they haven't come last night the next morning we haven't come

they haven't come last night but they're going to come tomorrow for us. So I said, we must do something. And we had friends of our relations who I went to. That's another funny thing. In all their troubles, I went to a dancing class, Jewish dancing class, of course. And you just kept dancing. Unbelievable, but true. And I had met Clara there, Cardoso, and she had said to me, come, come next week because we're going away. Well that meant I knew they were going either to Switzerland, trying to get to

Switzerland, or going into hiding. So I said to my mother I'm going to find out where they went. So I went to Els, her sister-in-law, Clara's sister-in-law, because she hadn't gone into hiding. She was a very blonde, tall lady who didn't look Jewish at all and she had a little three-year-old girl also very blonde and very non-Jewish looking and they stayed behind in the flat and the rest of the family went into hiding so I went to Els and asked her if she got an address for me to wear so she gave me the address of a man, and he turned out to be our insurance broker when I went there.

She said that if a woman would come tomorrow for my mother and sister, there was only room for two in Eindhoven, a family woman in Eindhoven, and my mother and sister were taken there the next day. And they were Christian Dutch people? Yeah. I had been the last few years to an evening class to learn to type and shorthand while I was still at school. And I met a girl there and she became very friendly and she said if her wife was in trouble I could come to her family. So that's where I went.

And I stayed with them for a week until the mother said it was too dangerous and I had to leave. Also she said they were out of food, so I said well and coal and so so. My father had stocked up quite a bit and I said we had that so she went to fetch it. Anyhow after a week I was in the street, so I had an uncle who was married to a non-Jewish person as well, Tante Tini. He wasn't with his first wife, that was the sister of my mother, but this was his second wife. And so I went to him and I stayed with them while working in the fur factory. And then one day I was sending my brother, my father and he had sent a letter out asking for chocolate, bonbons, boxes of bonbons. Now I knew he never had sweets at all, so I was told later on by somebody else who I met later on, again a sister-in-law of a cousin, who worked for the Jewish Council in Westerbork, in that concentration camp,

but was allowed out every weekend home until they were arrested themselves. She told me that my father was in hospital in that camp and that he gave the chocolate to the nurses, no doubt to try to get them to have him longer in the hospital, because they were sent every, there were trains going from there every Tuesday to Auschwitz, which was an extermination camp. So that was what happened and I sent. So that was what happened and I sent. And one day when I did that, I went back to work or was going back to work and I was on the corner of the street and I had a very funny feeling in my tummy and I just didn't go any further. I went back home and that day all the fur factories were collected by

the SS, the Germans, and sent to the concentration camp. So I missed it and felt very very good that I missed it. I had a cousin who had two little children then and I went there to help him because his wife was in hospital waiting her third child and also having tuberculosis TB and so she had to stay in the hospital and I went to look after these two children to cook for them and so and then one day Deentje she said to me to go and visit Vicky and I was having the baby that day and to take the baby away and give it to her. She would be in the other room and instead of the baby being taken back, the nurse was involved as well, instead of taking the baby back to the baby room, you know where all the babies were,

Deantje took it and brought it to non-Jewish people in the south of Holland and he was brought up by these people until the war was over. And the two other children were taken and again they were and I was doing that actually I was talking to Ricky

and taking the baby and took him to DJ you know who was in another

room How old were you at this point? Well I was 17 when the

war broke out But you're beginning to become a bit of a resistance person now

Well yes I didn't realise you see this to become a bit of a resistance person now. Well, yes. I didn't realise, you see. This is the funny thing of it. I had no idea that there was, that they were working for, that there was a resistance movement. No idea at all. Just was helping about the child.

No idea at all. In the beginning, there was hardly any resistance movement that grew up slowly but surely. In the beginning there wasn't. People helped each other, but there wasn't a real movement yet. And what about you? When did you start to do more with the resistance? Well, once, so my uncle, Uncle Jack, where I was staying therefore, and Tante Tini was a very nervous person. And she became very, very nervous because every time the blackout man came to see that the blackout was okay, they came upstairs and I was jumping out of the window so that he wouldn't see me. And because I was illegal there really,

and if my uncle would have been caught, he would have been sent to concentration camp too, and so would she. So I jumped out of the window on the roof every time this man came, whether it was raining or windy or anything, that was terrible, dreadful, dreadful really, unbelievable. Once he came in the room, it was my cousin's room really, who had already gone to a camp, a so-called working camp, and I was in his room, my uncle gave me his room to use, and when the blackout man came into that room, switched that light on, I had already jumped onto the roof and had to jump onto the next roof really, because otherwise he might have seen me when he opened the window.

So that was a terrible time, yes. Anyhow, then my uncle said, Tontatini is getting very, very nervous. I'm so scared that she's by accident give away, you know, that you're here. Which often happens of course, it was very difficult for many people. And she was hyper nervous. so I think it's better if you look if you can find another house so there we are I went to two or three more and something happened and then I was with a young couple and they had just two newborn babies and they lived in a tiny flat people wanted to have the money of course as well you paid your money of course as well.

You paid your money of course for staying with family in hiding. So by now you hadn't got the Jewish star, you were just pretending to be someone different? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was the first time actually. But I didn't have any papers yet, but I had taken my star off of course, that I had to do. So I was with this couple, I stayed a few weeks with them actually, and then one day I was out, because I had to go out to give them some privacy as well, you see. I met a friend of my cousin and he said, oh you mustn't go back to Europe because the man who gave you that address has given a list of all people he found places for to the SS. and my bed was there. But then one night he crept into my bed, I felt him, but I hadn't realized I was such a child that he'd fallen in love with me. So I just did as if I slept and I pushed him away and he went out. But then a few

nights after that it happened again and I woke up and pushed him out and said that I didn't want that type of thing and when he went a bit further you see and so the next morning I went to Dientje and told her about it and she got Dr. Wim Storm from the Leiden Hospital who took me to Leiden to the flat in Leiden with Aintje Holthuis who was a doctor also in the same department as Wim and that's where I met the resistance movement. Wim already did an awful lot for the resistance. It was afterwards that I realized that it existed. I was in Leiden of the Singel with Antje and Mien.

Mien was a laboratory person and Antje was a doctor. In the evening when we were at dinner, some of the doctors from Leiden Hospital came to have dinner with us, eat with us, and they just told some stories and so on. And in the beginning I had no clue that they were in the resistance. Anyhow, after a while they talked about it when I was there, when I had been there for a few weeks. And so I heard the stories. They were

taking Jewish people to Christian homes in other towns, you see. Very, very good. And I met several other people as well from the resistance movement therefore. Most of them there were doctors who were working in the hospital at the same time and it was a well-known, later on it was well-known, the doctors resistance group there in Leiden. And did you help them? Well, one night, one day, they were telling a story about Sushi, who he jumped out of the window rather than giving names of the people he worked with and I thought that was so wonderful, idealistic, you know. And then they also said how short they were because by that

time the Dutch boys and men were asked to, if they came from school and they want to go to university they had to sign a loyalty brief. If they didn't they were sent to Germany to work but if they didn't want to were sent to Germany to work. But if they didn't want to do that, they had to go into hiding. And many men were called up to go straight to Germany to work, and they didn't want to do that. So by the time I'm just talking about, there were already many, many, many Dutch non-Jewish boys and men who had to be taken into hiding.

And my resistance colleagues said therefore they needed more people because that happened there were not many boys they could use because the boys should either go to Germany or be students and so they needed girls really so I said can I help and that's how it happened and in the beginning they were delighted yes and then somebody Bob told me took me apart later on and said it's very dangerous for you you realize that and so you shouldn't really do it. But I wanted to do it because I had heard so much of the other people who did so many things. I wanted to help. Were you scared?

No. But slightly with some of the missions I did I was a bit scared. But no, it was no good being scared, no. So in the beginning all I did was filling in envelopes with illegal papers because newspapers were not allowed anymore but illegal papers were printed still and Wim and I were working for the funk and that was the paper I put in envelopes and then sent to people and then they asked me my first mission and I had to go to Holland to Amsterdam was giving me a suitcase there with sea head vests from the printer you had to be very careful so I was not allowed

to know the printer and she put it in the rack, in the luggage rack and I was sitting opposite it and I had to take that to five different towns in the south of Holland. There were five parcers-in, she told me. But it was already getting quite late and by then everybody had to be in before eight o'clock. There was a curfew. So by the time I got to Leiden, it was already quite getting quite late and so I got out and wanted to go home and then I saw at the exit not only the conductor or the men at the exit but also policemen in SS German SS so I couldn't do anything else but go through it you see. So I went there and they said what's in the suitcase? I said papers.

I had to open it so I didn't know the locks you see because I didn't know the suitcase at all so I was fiddling with those locks long long time and I thought now I have I've been there that's me you know I've gone and I opened the locks in the end opened the suitcase as well the lid and there were the five parcels and lo and behold he said all right go didn't say open up and what's in the parcels. So I went and I was trembling. Then I was scared, actually, after that. And me, he gave me a stiff drink.

Said, what's the matter? And I told him. But the next morning, I went with the suitcase to the south and delivered the papers. of history, we uncover the epic stories that inspire Assassin's Creed. We're stepping into feudal Japan in our special series, Chasing Shadows, where samurai warlords and shinobi spies teach us the tactics and skills needed not only to survive, but to conquer. Whether you're preparing for Assassin's Creed Shadows or fascinated by history and great stories, listen to Echoes of History, a ubisoft podcast brought

to you by history hits there are new episodes every week and what other kind of missions do you have to do and i went another time i went with the suitcase and she put it in the luggage again for me but this time it was early and I didn't go out and by that time I went to the Hague, we came to the Hague, I had to go to the loo so I went to the loo and when I came back I thought I was in the wrong wagon because my suitcase wasn't there anymore. But the woman opposite who had been sitting opposite me and chatted to me, she was there so I thought, no I'm in the right carriage. So she said to me,

you lost something, your suitcase. And I said no, no, no, I couldn't say yes. But she opened the window when we stopped in Rotterdam, she opened the And I said no, no, no, I couldn't say yes. I said no, no, no. But she opened the window when we stopped in Rotterdam. She opened the window and she yelled out, the girl has lost her suitcase. I could have killed her. Then an SS soldier came, German, and said, Rouse, out. So I went out, I had to go out. And he said, what is in the suitcase?

And I said, clothes, underwear. And he started asking me a few more questions about the suitcase and where did I put it and so. And I told him him in the luggage rack and then he was called away thank goodness and wait here he said but I saw the train moving and I jumped on the moving train and off we went. I come in Dordrecht where we had to change for the if you wanted to go to the east side of Holland, to Limburg, and I had to go out.

By the time I was at the exit, the conductor came and he said, are you the girl who lost her suitcase? And I said, yes. He said, oh, I think I found it. What was in it? I said said underwear. And he came with a small suitcase, not mine at all, and opened it up and thank God there was underwear in it. And he said, is this it? I said yes and off I went with somebody else's suitcase.

Later on we heard that the suitcase was my suitcase was found in the water and I sent a telegram actually to Anne telling her something was wrong and she came the next day I went home and she came the next day and she laughed she said well the one who opened the suitcase must have got the shock of his life his or her life they thought they stole a suitcase with clothes you see and they got the shock of his life, his or her life. They thought they stole a suitcase with clothes, you see, and they got the paper, the illegal papers. That's why they threw it in the water. One day I went to Setti, and I was waiting for the bus

just around the corner where I lived, and it started to rain. And a German officer came with a big umbrella and held it above me and said can I help you and I said no thank you and and then the bus came luckily and he held it above me all the way in the bus and a few days after, a few weeks after that, I was there again and he came again. And he said, I just live over the road here, would you like to come and have a cup of tea? It's terrible weather. And I said, no, no, thank you, I have no time. I told Bob about that, who was really my boss. He said, oh that is

very good, you must try and get some papers of him. And I said, why? He said, well we've got some boys in jail and they have to be cut out and we need German papers with official German stamps and so. And so I said, oh no, much too dangerous, I didn't want to do it, but then he talked me into it, he said, well, you want to help the boys and so. So the next time it happened, which it did, we had tea, so he went to the kitchen and I saw my opportunity. I went into his jacket, got out a paper and saw that there was one with a stamp and so on, German paper, and put it in my handbag. And when he came back, we had a drink and we chatted. And I hope he didn't realize I was nervous, because I was. realise I was nervous, because I was. And I went home and gave my papers to Bob. So that was rather a tricky... and I tried not to go in the neighbourhood anymore.

I'll bet. For months and months and months. Your luck seems to be unending, but it did eventually run out. Yes, the luck ran out. Not for me so much, to stay away, but for Bob. He was arrested in the train. They'd been looking out for him already for a while. And he was arrested in the train and he came to his room between two Grüner Polizei, two German police. I tried to run upstairs. This was on the first floor and I tried to run upstairs, this was on the first floor and I tried to run upstairs

but they got me back and we were interrogated there, all three, and then we were separately taken by car to the prison. They went through Bob's cupboard and behind his clothes they found a pistol. It was then that I got scared because he had always said not to use a pistol, not to have one, and then he had one. I was really furious in a way and very scared. Anyhow the boys said that I was just a girlfriend and those two grunie police I believed it and I said so as well of course I was just a girlfriend and don't know anything about it. But I was taken to the prison to the

women's prison in Utrecht and there was an old prison guard, old woman, and she said to me, have you got a diary? And I said, yes. She said, tear it up and put it in the toilet. I said, there is nothing in it. Oh, they'll always find something, she said. She was on, you know, against them as a prison guard, because that was her job actually. She and her brother helped a prisoner to escape and they got caught as well. She was sent to Ravensbrück too. But the next day I was taken by those two Grünepolizei to Amsterdam, to the Euterpe straat. Now the Euterpe straat was the headquarters of the Gestapo, where people were taken and tortured.

So we arrived at the Euterpe straat and they opened the car door and I was out and there was a man standing on the top of the, the huge staircase to go into the school, a man standing on the top of there said What is this? What is that? And my policeman said, oh the girl has nothing to do with it. And so I thought, oh fine, that's good. But then he said, Lagos, Glaub ich nicht, I don't believe it. And my heart sank in my shoes. And he was the head of the Gestapo, I later on heard. But then after a while they came back and gave me my backpack. So, and he didn't

say anything, so it was all right. So I was lucky again. They took me to the big prison in Amsterdam, Amsterveenseeweg. And I was put in a cell there with five others. A cell for one. And so how did you get out of that prison cell? Well I was taken every day for interrogation and they of course said, they asked my parents and I said, I had prepared that of course, I said they were killed in a train crash in England and my brothers were in England too, didn't tell them in the army or the Navy and they believed it. And then one day when I had an interview again he said you better tell us really the truth because Hitler does

not the Fuhrer does not kill women we knew it better of course but that's what he said never forget it what he said yes so I said I've been telling you the truth and then I was I was called for Kriegsdauer. I got Kriegsdauer, which is imprisonment for Kriegsdauer, the duration of the war. And I was sent. Then one morning I was called out of the cell. And there was a long queue of women and men.

And we went by tram to the station and then to the Dutch concentration camp in the south of Holland near the Belgian border called Vught and I was imprisoned there, well in the camp and I met several people from the resistance of course who were there already, we were put in a bath there and the clothes were all taken, everything was taken, we were given blue overalls, complete overalls, with only the back you could open a bit to go to the loo and we were given clocks to wear and a

blue headscarf which we had to bind underneath our thing but we didn't. That was the Dutch concentration camp for non-Jews because by that time they hadn't found out I was Jewish of course. The next day I was put to work. I was given a brush and a bucket with soap and water and I was told to clean the nursery floor. There was a nursery school and you never believe it. I didn't believe it either. There was on the wall there was two men prisoners were painting nursery rhymes on the wall there was two men prisoners were painting nursery rhymes on the wall

where were you sent after that? and then the next day I was sent to Sertogenbosch to a gas mask factory I was put on a conveyor belt to do small things on the gas mask and the girl opposite me said

don't screw it too fast, very loose because we don't want it to be right and they were doing sabotage and I was doing it then as well and at the end of the belt it was all going in a big wooden case to be sent to Germany. But we were only allowed to go to the loo at 12 o'clock. The work was from 6 to 6, 12 hours. One week day shift, one week night shift. And when were you sent to Germany? One day we heard the planes going over and so on.

We were told that the Allies were near the border of Belgium and Holland. And we thought, oh fine, we're going to be freed, we're going to be freed. But no, the Germans one day sent us back to the Vught camp, the main camp, and on the 4th of September 1944, and on the 6th of September we were put in the trains to Germany. But I tried to hide under a mattress, but not quick enough, my legs were still sticking out. And when the guard came, the woman guard came, she pulled me back in and pushed me in the last wagon. And that was my luck again, because there were only a few women in there. Well, the others were 70 or 80 in a wagon, in a train. It took us three days and two nights to go to Germany to Ravensbrück, turned out to be. And then we arrived in Ravensbrück and that was terrible,

terrible, terrible. The doors, the sliding doors were open, they were all cattle wagons of course, we were put in and the sliding doors were opened and outside were SS men with dogs and SS women with whips and so out, out they said, out quick, quick, quick. So we had to and we walked to the camp under shouting all the time. We weren't used to that at all in the Dutch concentration camp, you know, there were hardly any German. So when we came into the camp we went through the gate and we went into a big tent. We slept, we were dying to sleep really, most of them were. I had quite slept actually, we were quite lucky because we were only eight in that, or twelve in that wagon, so we had room to sleep.

But the others weren't, hadn't. And so we slept in a tent until the next day and then we were sent to the Badehaus, the bath-barrack. We were all queuing up, you had to queue all the time in Germany in the camp, five in a row. And when the first ones came out they told us, out from the shower, the shower it was, when they came out, they told us that they had to give everything, everything was taken away. There was a group of us who were Philips workers in Eindhoven, had worked for Philips. And they were sent straight to Siemens factory, which was the concentration camp was in the valley

and the Siemens factory was up the hill. And they were working there straight away and so one of them said to me, why don't you join us? I said, I have never worked for Philips, I don't know how to do it. Oh well it doesn't matter, they'll tell you tell you how to do it I said but they'll ask for my number because we've given up numbers back then, you know on a piece of cloth I was scared, but the next morning at half-past five I joined them And that's how I got she was quite right. All they did was counting the rows not the people at all and So I went into the factory and they put me down. The factory, they were big barracks and huts, really huts. I was sat on the stool and I had to soldier very fine wire like you have for

airplanes you know things or in cars even and I couldn't I was so nervous and I was still in the main camp and I was on the toilet by that time I had terrible tummy trouble always, my intestines have suffered tremendously and I couldn't get up from the loo when the roll call was on, Appel. And so a German soldier came and with his belt he started hitting me and two of the others got me up so that they could count because otherwise they were without and they took me to the Revere to the hospital because I had collapsed completely unconscious and I was there for a few days and then

somebody came and said to me are you Majaga? I said yes. So she said, well Siemens has built a new barrack and Hersefeld, the chef, wants you to be his secretary in Schreiberlin. So then I quickly got myself demobbed from the hospital and got back to there and I became his secretary. And you were in that condition till the end of the war? Yeah. Every day the cart with all the dead bodies passed by from the hospital to the crematorium, you know, and you saw that and all these legs and arms hanging over it and so, terrible.

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a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by History Hits. There are new episodes every week. And you heard, of course, well, things. You didn't see it because you weren't there, but you heard stories from people who had been in the bunker and had been beaten to death. They tied them up and they had to count, say that they get 25 beatings and they had to count and then they lost count because they were unconscious and had to start all over again until they were dead. But I've never been present at one, no thank God not.

When the war finished, how much of your family had survived the war? Only I, well my two brothers of course they were in England, well one of them was sailing. But your father? But my father, mother and sister were killed, yeah. It took six, I was already in England six months after the war before I heard about my father. I still had a hope that he may be in Russia or something you know. The Russians liberated the camps in the east you know so I had a slight hope that he might have it. So for you did the end of the war bring happiness? No no no no I had a very bad time after the war, even here in England.

But first of all in Holland. When we were taken to Sweden, which we were the Dutch and Belgian women, on the 23rd of April 1945, before Ravensbrück was liberated, and we were exchanged by Count Bernadotte. While I was in Sweden, when the Dutch were liberated, the Holland was liberated, the Consul and the Ambassador came to the camp where we were interned in a small camp. Thea and I were asked to come to Stockholm then to help, would we be willing to help when other people came out of the camps because there are thousands of concentration camps nobody knew there were so many usually but there

were and masses of people came and we helped my job was first of all my job was to find out sick people people who were in hospital or with families and were not well and then see what they needed and make a list and then get that signed, you know. So you heard all the stories? Yeah. And then when that was over, when people became a bit better, I was told when the planes started going back to Holland, that was only in July, end of June, July. We arrived there in April, because up till then there were no

planes and I was asked to make the list of people who wanted to go back. And when I arrived in Holland at the Centraal Station, everybody or almost everybody was collected by family and there was I standing alone. And I was taken by cart and horse to my friend Grete. I had been riding to Grete, Brinkhuis, the one who was my friend all during the war. They very, very, very friendly, very kindly took me in. But I felt so bad because I suddenly, I was alone, even with these nice people. I had no family, I had no home. And there I was in Amsterdam, suddenly, and also without my friends.

That was 75 years ago. Yeah. You've lived seven and a half decades since then. Yeah. Have you been able to rediscover joy and happiness and love? Yes, I did. How have you moved beyond the trauma you saw when you suffered? Well, it was the first five years here in England as well.

Very lonely. My brothers were there but it turned out I was looking forward for a family life. My mistake perhaps, but I was, but I didn't. They had built their own lives. And I was a little sister, they thought I should look after, but of course I wasn't. I was grown up very much so and so with my younger brother David with his fiancee and later his wife couldn't get on at all and my elder brother went to Canada. I get on with my nieces,

his daughters but that's not life. So the first five years were very difficult, especially, although they gave me a very good job, the Minnesota events, you know. But again, they were very good to me and I didn't have much to do. Well, I was used to work and used my brains all the time. And suddenly I had nothing. And I lived in a room on my own you know. I became friendly with people and friends alright. Then I kept on telling myself don't cry all the time there are people

you're very lucky to be in London there are people who would like to stand in your shoes and I then got a job with the BBC that section and I started studying first of all my English and then I started studying sociology and anthropology and I met my husband and that was the beginning of healing that was the beginning of healing? That was the beginning of the healing, yeah. But I must say that I still have days that, you know, I feel depressed. But I tell myself it's no good thinking of it, you can't change it. I mustn't read anything about it in the evenings because otherwise I can't sleep. And if by accident something goes on television about camps or something, I mustn't do that because I can't

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