Selma Meyer (resistance fighter)

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Selma Meyer approx. (1922)

Sara Cato "Selma" Meyer (also Meijer) (born: July 6, 1890 in Amsterdam ; died: February 11, 1941 in Berlin ) was a Jewish Dutch resistance fighter , feminist and pacifist .

Life

Selma Meyer was born Sara Cato Meyer into a Jewish family in Amsterdam. Her father was Moritz Meyer (1865–1906) and her mother Sophie Meyer-Philips (1868–1955). Sophie Meyer Philips was a niece and cousin of the founder of Philips & Co . After elementary school Meyer attended commercial school and from 1908 worked for ten years as a stenographer . In 1923 she took over the Holland Typing Office together with her then partner Annette Monasch. It was a write office , the one of the first staffing companies in the Netherlands stenographers sent and sold typewriters.

Resistance fighter

In 1923 Meyer was a member and secretary of the Pacifist Women's League, the Dutch branch of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom . At that time Cornelia Ramondt-Hirschmann was president of the organization. Meyer was a member of several committees: for German refugees; for the victims of the Spanish civil war and in support of the resistance in Germany. She was the first to sign an appeal for solidarity with the defendants of the Wuppertal trade union trials and co-founder of the Centraal Comité Wuppertal Proces, which was convened at Christmas 1935. From 1930 to 1936 she was a member of the Dutch party SDAP .

In autumn 1932 she was one of the founders of the National Peace Center (NVC). On August 13, 1936, she took part in an international conference in support of Republican Spain in Paris. In addition to her, CPN chairman Ko Beuzemaker and railway unionist Nathan Nathans also took part. In 1937 she met Hans Ebeling . Over time, a deep friendship developed between the two. Selma Meyer and the HTO played a key role in the publication of the resistance magazine Die Kameradschaft, Writings of Young Germans , edited by Hans Ebeling and Theo Hespers . She supported the editorial team both personally and financially, and made her office space available for work on the magazine. She ran the Holland Typing Office and used it for her activities. The Holland Typing Office mainly employed women. The magazine Kameradschaft was assembled here and prepared for dispatch to Germany.

Towards the end of 1939 she was put on the special wanted list by the Wilhelmshaven Abwehr . It was a list of people who were to be arrested and questioned after a German invasion.

In April 1940 Meyer became seriously ill. During the German invasion of the Netherlands on May 10, 1940, she had already left for Zeeland to recover there. From there she fled to France. However, out of concern for her mother and her co-workers, she returned to Amsterdam and joined the Dutch resistance. She was arrested on October 26, 1940. After her interrogation in the prison in The Hague, Meyer was transported to Berlin in mid-November and interrogated in the Moabit police prison there . In January 1941, after an interrogation by the Gestapo, she was admitted to the Jewish Hospital of the Berlin community and operated on for peritonitis .

She died at the age of fifty from complications from the operation. According to a fellow prisoner, she died as a result of abuse by the Gestapo .

Selma Meyer was buried in an anonymous grave in the Jewish cemetery in Berlin-Weißensee . A later burial in the Dutch cemetery of honor Bloemendaal did not take place because this was rejected by her family.

literature

  • Bart de Cort: Vrouwen, Vrede en Verzet: Selma Meyer (1890–1941) and Haar Holland Typing Office. Champlemy Pers, Amsterdam 2013, ISBN 978-90-79567-03-4
  • Els Kloek, Maarten Hell: 1001 Vrouwen in the 20th eeuw. Uitgeverij Vantilt, Nijmegen 2018, ISBN 978-94-6004-386-4 , pp. 540-541

Trivia

Yella Rottländer's grandfather (Justus Meyer) is Selma Meyer's brother

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Bart de Cort: Van vrouwen, vrede en verzet: Selma Meyer (1890–1941) en hair Holland Typing Office . Champlemy Pers Amsterdam, Amsterdam 2013, ISBN 978-90-79567-03-4 .
  2. ^ Sara Cato Meijer. Retrieved October 21, 2018 (Dutch).
  3. ↑ Annette Monasch. Retrieved October 21, 2018 (Dutch).
  4. ^ Stephan Stracke: The Wuppertal union processes, union resistance and international solidarity . 1st edition. de Noantri, Bremen 2012, ISBN 978-3-943643-00-8 .
  5. ↑ a b Etienne Verhoeyen: nasleep van het Venlo incident. (PDF) Retrieved October 21, 2018 (Dutch).
  6. ↑ Biography of Selma Meyer (1890–1941). Retrieved October 21, 2018 (Dutch).
  7. ↑ Hildegard Wester: Selma- Cato Meyer (* July 6 , 1880 + February 11, 1941) , Theo Hespers Foundation, October 30, 2014
personal data
SURNAME Meyer, Selma
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Meyer, Sara Cato (full name); Meijer, Selma
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Dutch resistance fighter, feminist and pacifist
DATE OF BIRTH July 6, 1890
PLACE OF BIRTH Amsterdam
DATE OF DEATH February 11, 1941
Place of death Berlin