Little did I know what a journey the story of my mother’s life would turn out to be. When I first opened the large boxes some years after her death, they appeared to contain lots of old documents, quite a few in German, and many letters, but also enclosed were some fascinating photos of student balls, sailing parties, and Taro’s regiment practicing and presumably preparing for war. A photographic story in itself of Sabine’s prewar and beginning of the wartime. I saw a happy young woman who had no idea what life had in store for her.
The most intriguing finds, though, were the two large bundles of letters, each held together by pieces of string. One beautifully and elegantly handwritten in German, but unreadable for me, and the second one love letters from Taro. When I eventually read his letters, I really understood what importance he had played in her life. Her first and most important love of her life.
In order to try and understand more of the information I found, my brother Peter and I decided to visit first Amersfoort and then Ravensbrück. Both are of course unrecognizable today compared with how they looked during the war.
In Ravensbrück, we were lucky with our very knowledgeable guide, Matthias Heyl, who for several hours took us on a private guided tour, including to the Siemens site, and gave endless explanations, even producing the transport list of my mother’s arrival in the camp and remarking that it would have been her one hundredth birthday a few days later. We were quite moved by the personal attention they gave to our visit.
Six months later, I also visited Mauthausen and again found a very kind guide waiting to take me round. I expressed surprise that a young man like himself would be so interested in working in a place with such a grim history. He told me his grandfather had been in the SS but had never spoken of it, and he was trying to come to terms with this and understand his own family’s history.
Both guides spent a long time showing me around the camps, or what was left of them, and answering all our questions. I am very grateful to them for their personal attention.
The German letters were at that time not yet translated, and I had no idea what was in them, but when I showed them to the archivist in the office in Mauthausen, he was very interested.
It took nearly two years to find someone who could not only translate them, as they were written in old-fashioned German, but also decipher the handwriting.
Eventually I was lucky to be introduced to Richard (and his partner, Irene). Richard has done an amazing job in not only just translating the letters but also reproducing the sense of sometimes exaggerated formality and the feel of the era. I am very grateful for his enthusiasm, his interest, his knowledge and the advice he gave during this rather long process.
While the translating was proceeding, I contacted the Arolsen Archives, the international tracing service, and the International Center on Nazi Persecution to try and find out more about Gebele or indeed if there were still any living relatives. They have been very helpful in supplying me with information on him, but no relatives have so far been found. They are still looking, though.
Andreas Kranebitter, from the Mauthausen archives in Vienna, also was kind enough to offer assistance and wrote to the Munich archives, which supplied yet more bits of information about Gebele. Some of it conflicted with what Gebele had told Sabine.
My mother spoke very little about the conditions in the camps or what happened to her, other than to say she was always very hungry and cold. She did write quite a few reports after the war, but mostly factual, i.e., dates, people in the camp with her, etc., but also some details relating to incidents that had happened. They were of course very useful for my research, but did not give me a clear picture of everyday life in the camps.
My information about everyday camp life therefore comes from other sources.
Dunya Breur, whose mother Aat was in Ravensbrück with Sabine (and who drew the portrait of her, now in the Rijksmuseum along with all her other drawings made in the camp), came to see my mother when she wrote her book Een Verborgen Herinnering. I recognized some descriptions in her book from Sabine’s reports, and Dunya quotes Sabine several times in her book as well. I have therefore used some of her descriptions in my book as I feel many came from Sabine herself.
Further sources came from the internet, other people’s stories and witness reports, various books, and archives, in particular those of the NIOD in Amsterdam and the National Archives in The Hague. Sarah Helm’s book, If This Is a Woman, especially provided detailed information and is a true encyclopedia of the history and life of Ravensbrück.
The museums in both Ravensbrück and Mauthausen also provided much information.
The conditions in the camps changed continuously, especially towards the end of the war. Chaos reigned. Camp authorities desperately tried, on the one hand, to destroy all administrative evidence of what had gone on and send record numbers of women to their deaths while trying to clear the camp; and on the other hand, they tried to improve conditions within the camp, particularly the Revier so that they could show the Allies how well they had looked after their prisoners. Conditions are therefore described differently by different people at different times.
A great deal of the information on Peter Tazelaar, my father, comes from Victor Laurentius, who has been endlessly helpful regarding research and supplying information. He has written his own biography on Peter—De Grote Tazelaar. His help and advice with this book have been invaluable.
Soldier of Orange, written by Erik Hazelhoff Roelfzema, which has been made into a film and musical, also provided a useful and fascinating insight into his and Peter’s time in London and their adventures during the war.
Regarding the betrayal by Sabine’s boss, I researched the National and Central Archives in The Hague. Because of the possibility of any of his relatives still living, I have chosen not to reveal his name or the file numbers in the archives.
I have donated the papers about the interrogation in Amersfoort in connection with Sabine’s stay, and the upset this caused, to Camp Amersfoort.
Sabine’s personal archive, including the original text of the German letters in full, is now in the Resistance Museum in Amsterdam and also available to view on their website.
When I first started writing this story, I came across a TV interview with Selma van de Perre, who had just written a book about her time in Ravensbrück. She was there at the same time as my mother, and she mentioned several women whom I recognized as her friends too. So, intrigued, I contacted the publishers to ask if they could put me in touch with Selma so that I could find out if she and Sabine might have known each other. And indeed, Selma had known my mother.
I am very grateful to Catharina Schilder, Selma’s editor, who replied to my request, for not only putting me in touch with Selma but also expressing an interest in my book, which at that time was only a story to pass on to my children.
She also arranged for it to be translated from English into Dutch, my Dutch after living more than fifty years in England being rather rusty.
Bert Natter not only has been an amazing translator but also became involved in some of the research and has been a source of encouragement and knowledge and a shoulder to lean on.