25th March 1945
Dear Madame!
With the agreement of your daughter, Sabine Zuur, I permit myself as a stranger to send a few lines in this manner. Your daughter is currently located in the concentration camp in Mauthausen Oberdonau (Austria), having come here well cared for and in good health from Ravensbrück. She is doing well here and if I may tell you this, I will most definitely look after her in an honorable manner, protect her and watch over her. Rest assured, Madame, that my support takes place with honest intentions and my letter to you, dear Madame, occurs at the wish of your daughter, thus there is no reason to be concerned. Miss Zuur is well situated here in an office, her physical care leaves nothing to be desired, her physical condition is good and generally suited to the camp. The transfer of the camp stay from Ravensbrück to here took place due to evacuation before the enemy.
In line with my assigned task, I add the most sincere greetings and best wishes from your daughter, adding that you may most certainly look forward to her return in the near future, and if you would like, then you can, dear Madame, write to your daughter yourself, but without any mention of any kind of my lines written to you today and its more detailed information.
Miss Sabine Zuur, born on 15th July 1918 in Semarang, Dutch East Indies.
Prisoner no. 2851 currently in the concentration camp Mauthausen Oberdonau, Germania.
A letter from a German in a concentration camp? What did Moeder Bien think when she received this letter, or did she even receive it? Unbeknownst to Sabine, her mother had moved several times since she was imprisoned, so her current address was not known to her daughter. As a Nacht und Nebel prisoner, Sabine was to all intents and purposes dead. The food parcels that had been sent to her in Ravensbrück never reached her, and the labels were returned as Person Unknown. If she did receive the letter, it must have been a huge relief to hear her daughter was in good health and coping well and above all that she could be expected to return home before too long. But who was this German who was caring for her daughter?
On April 1, 1945, Easter Day, Franz Gebele sent his fifth very long letter to his “liebe Sabine Sonnenschein.” They had met up during the day, and Gebele felt “blessed.” He had also received a letter from her, which had helped him through a difficult night.
He wondered why Sabine objected to his constant offerings. Would she not have done the same if she were in his place? He saw it as his holy mission to help people in need. Sabine must have wondered why he was only helping her while thousands were dying of hunger and enduring terrible conditions. But for Gebele, no one else compared to his Sabine.
“So stop complaining,” he wrote, “about being spoiled because I might get very angry at my Sonnenschein. Do you hear me?”
It sounds like friendly banter, but considering his and her positions in the camp, it also infers a threat. Gebele was getting more and more overwrought, and no one in the camp—not the Kapos (prisoners who worked for and with the Germans) or other prisoners or perhaps especially him, could be relied on or trusted. From an emotionally damaged Gebele, such a threat could be very serious.
Sabine’s ankle was still very painful, and Gebele had asked the doctor for advice, but according to him, the pain was part of the healing process. “In the beginning,” he said, “when trying to walk, pain is normal, especially in the groin and swollen glands, and around the break.” But despite this reassurance, Gebele had asked him to inspect Sabine’s ankle the following day. He could then also make sure there were no other health problems.
Keep strong, Sabine, don’t be afraid. I watch over you. You are not alone in the camp.
Gebele was pressing for an answer to his important question (of marrying him), and Sabine had promised an answer once she had returned home. But Gebele struggled to accept this. He couldn’t wait. It was keeping him awake at night, but he also realized that too much pressure on her might have the opposite effect. He therefore begged her not to tell him if she decided against it. He would rather not know, but if she agreed, she could tell him straightaway.
Sabine by now felt confident enough to ask Gebele if he could help the woman in the bed next to her, and he promised to ask the doctor to attend to her as well. So at this stage, she was clearly still in the Revier.
But other news had reached Sabine. Her friend Dr. Steijns had also arrived in Mauthausen. Despite there being tens of thousands of prisoners, news of anyone from home arriving would spread like wildfire through the camp. Sabine had been a patient of Michel (Chel) Steijns before the war, and his wife, Grace, had been one of the women delivering food parcels and toiletries when she was in the Utrecht jail. Chel had been arrested for his illegal activities shortly after Sabine was in Utrecht, and he had now also arrived in Mauthausen via Camp Vught, Bergen-Belsen and Dachau, more dead than alive. Because of his appalling physical condition, he had been put in the Totenlager, the barrack where the dying were left to die. The Totenlager was situated outside the camp near the granite quarry, the Wiener Graben.
As soon as she heard the news about him, she asked Gebele if he could save Dr. Steijns, and this request most certainly did save his life.
Gebele at first told her he had tried to find Dr. Steijns, but so far had not succeeded. He asked if she could find out where in the camp he might be, and he would ask the doctor to visit him. He was only too happy to help a compatriot of Sabine, even though it was at great risk to himself. He already found out that Dr. Steijns had several times suffered serious punishments and was known to the SS. “Because your friend has been sent to the punishment bunker several times both here and in Vught, he is being watched carefully.” But despite that, Gebele promised her that he would do all he could to help him and would keep Sabine informed.
He warned her to never make a list of names “for your own and all your Dutch friends’ safety. If it would be discovered during an inspection it could have serious consequences and result in many deaths.”
It is likely that Gebele, like many high-ranking officers in the camp, listened to BBC radio to keep abreast of the developments at the Front, as German radio did not give this information. He seemed well-informed of what was going on.
He impressed on Sabine not to lose heart, because the war would end soon and “our friends are already within twenty kilometers of Vienna.”
In his previous letters, he referred to the Allies as the enemy, when they conquered Bavaria, but now they were “friends.” He reassured her that Mauthausen would very shortly be liberated. Vienna was about 200 km to the east and Bavaria less than 150 km to the west of the camp. He tried to prepare Sabine for the liberation and told her to start collecting her belongings, so that when the time came, he would collect “meine liebe Sabine” and take her to safety. He finished with best wishes and added a postscript: “Is your underwear in the laundry? Were the clothes okay?”
While Gebele’s obsessive care is oppressive and feels like she is his hostage, it is also reassuring to read that he tried so hard to protect and help her.
During these last few days, while he was fussing over her broken ankle and her poor state of health, a deadly typhoid epidemic was devastating the camp. While many others succumbed through exhaustion, were shot dead or were sent to the gas chambers, so near liberation, Sabine and her close friends seem to have been fairly safe thanks to Gebele.