Salma van de Paer: Dutch Resistance Fighter and Survivor of Ravensbrück

At 101 years old, Salma van de Paer from the Netherlands, published a book titled “My Name is Salma.” In it, she recounts her experiences during the Holocaust. It took her eighty years to find the strength to describe what happened during that terrible, life-shattering time when she was a member of the Dutch resistance and later imprisoned in one of the most brutal concentration camps.

In recent years, not only has her story been published, but she also returns each year to Ravensbrück concentration camp, where 92,000 women were murdered, to share her testimony with young visitors.

From Sarah Wolman to “Marga”

Salma was born in the Netherlands as Sarah Wolman and grew up in a family of four children. After the German occupation of the Netherlands in 1942, her father was murdered. Her mother and the daughters went into hiding in a cramped shelter, but after nine months they were betrayed. Her mother and younger sister were caught and murdered. Salma managed to escape, dyed her hair, obtained a forged identity card under the name “Marga,” and tried to survive.

Joining the Dutch Resistance

While in Leiden, she discovered the Dutch resistance. She met a group of doctors who were hiding Jews and needed help. She began working with forged documents, passing them on to people who would be saved by them.

Her courage was extraordinary: at one point she traveled to Paris and entered the Gestapo headquarters itself to deliver a message to a Nazi officer who was secretly cooperating with the resistance. As a Jew with false papers, infiltrating the heart of the Nazi stronghold required unimaginable bravery.

Imprisonment in Ravensbrück

When she was eventually caught and sent to Ravensbrück, a concentration camp located between Hamburg and the Baltic Sea on the shores of Lake Schwedt, the Germans did not realize her papers were forged. She was not marked as a Jew — something that likely saved her life, as Jews had virtually no chance of survival in that camp.

In Ravensbrück, Jewish women were subjected to cruel medical experiments, their children were killed in horrific ways, and most prisoners ultimately perished in the crematoria they themselves were forced to build.

One particularly sadistic guard, Hermine Braunsteiner, nicknamed “the mare” for her brutal lashings, became infamous for her cruelty. The German company Siemens even operated a factory inside the camp, where Jewish and Polish women were worked to death.

“The Rabbits of Ravensbrück”

There was a group of prisoners known by the horrifying nickname “The Rabbits of Ravensbrück.” These women were used as guinea pigs in grotesque medical experiments designed to “test” the body’s response to wounds, infections, and other inflicted injuries. Most died in agony, but a few survived, and after the war, aid organizations attempted to help them rebuild their lives.

Liberation and Reunion

Non-Jewish prisoners were released by the Red Cross one week before the Germans fled, and they were transported to Sweden. The Jewish women, however, were forced on a death march, during which many perished.

In Sweden, Salma at first continued using her false name Marga, but when she realized that newspapers were publishing survivor lists to help families reconnect, she reverted to her real name. Her brother saw it and was able to reunite with her after the war.

Justice After the War

Sixteen members of the Ravensbrück staff were sentenced to death and executed in the two years following the war. In 1976, Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal located “the mare,” Hermine Braunsteiner, who was living openly in Austria under her real name. She was extradited, tried, and sentenced to life in prison.

The Ravensbrück camp itself was used as a Communist military base until the fall of the Soviet bloc. Today, it houses a museum.

For decades, Salma repressed the horrors she witnessed and endured. Only in recent years did she find the courage to confront them, to write her memoir, and to speak publicly about her past.