title: My Name Is Selma by: Perre, Selma van de published: 2022-08-16 read: 2021-03 preview

“My name is Selma” is an autobiography of a holocaust survivor. I made the mistake of buying this book in Dutch, only to discover that the Dutch version is a translation of the English original. I tried then to get the original, failed, and plodded on in Dutch. It felt unnatural, despite the fact that the author, an octogenarian, is Dutch.

If you, like me, are not new to the second world war but have read books like Anne Frank’s diary, many of the details and topics that Selma describes will not be new, and in one way or the other not totally shocking. That gone, it’s a compelling story of how she, a Jewish woman, moved through the war while being in the Netherlands (mostly), and surviving it. Bit of an odd story in parts, therein nice. But also, nothing special – which is, of course, rubbish since the story of a holocaust survivor is definitely special.

I didn’t mind the book. But it also did not ring to me. Sorry.