This podcast does contain some description of events which some listeners may find distressing.

Acton Acton and welcome to We Have Ways of Making You Talk with me, James Holland and with

Selma Van der Pair. And I have to say this is a particularly special edition of the podcast because

Selma is from a Dutch Jewish family, was brought up in Holland, then suddenly the war came, she lost

most of her family, her father and mother and her sister in the Holocaust. She herself was a member

of the Dutch Resistance, was eventually called and eventually transported to Ravensbrook, which she

survived. It's the most extraordinary story of survival. And here she is, you know, all these years

later standing in front of me, I can see her now. Selma, thank you very much for coming on and

welcome. And gosh, what a story you have. And I thought we might just start at the beginning if

that's all right, you know, your childhood and growing up. And you know, who were your parents?

And you moved around a bit, didn't you? But mainly Amsterdam.

I was one of four children. I had two older brothers, one, nine years and the other one,

11 years over. And a little sister, six years younger than me. So good old guy.

Yeah, like the Queen. And it seems to happen with women sometimes. We lived in the family,

comes from Alkman, which is a small town in the north of Holland. My father was brought up with his

grandparents because in those days, women got many babies and his mother. He was the eldest one.

And then the second one arrived after a few months. He was taken by his grandparents for the time

being, but it turned out they kept him forever. And he was brought up with this. He was brought up

and he never forgave his mother for that. So he had, although he had a very nice upbringing.

And he didn't like it very much. Later on, when he became older. And his grandparents were very

religious, very religious orthodox Jews, not as you talk now about orthodox, but in those days

in Holland, most people who were Jews were orthodox Jews, means they were religious, that's all.

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