When the Second World War broke out young, vibrant and beautiful Sabine Zuur joined the resistance movement without any hesitation. But Sabine was betrayed and subjected to multiple violent interrogations. Many of her friends were executed; she was eventually sent to Mauthausen concentration camp, via Amersfoort and Ravensbrück, enduring gruelling conditions and forced labour.
After Sabine Zuur’s death, her daughter Eva discovers an astonishing archive containing love letters from pilot Taro, who crashed in his
Spitfire, and from Sabine’s second love Gerard, who was executed by the Nazis. She finds prison notes Sabine smuggled out in her laundry. She also comes across a pile of passionate, but terrifying love letters from a man called Gebele, a German professional criminal who would save her mother’s life in Mauthausen. Using the letters, Eva reconstructs her mother’s experience as an underground war hero and a prisoner in several concentration camps.

Eva Taylor-Tazelaar is the daughter of Sabine Zuur and Peter Tazelaar, a major Dutch war hero. She was born in The Hague, but has lived in Cheshire, England for many years.