I offered him a cigarette. He glanced as if to check that he had not misunderstood, then grabbed one. ‘Thank you, thank you.’ His eyes lingered on the packet, which he couldn’t read because they were American, Peter Stuyvesant. His eyes lingered too on my gold lighter. ‘Number thirty-seven,’ I said. ‘Take me to thirty-seven.’

The cigarette seemed to give him energy and his lop-sided hobble through the rows became more rapid. The smoke was good and pungent in the cold air.

‘You see, they are all the same,’ he said again when we reached it.

‘Open it.’

I sensed he was reluctant, probably because of the effort involved. He put his cigarette between his lips, leaned his stick against the wall, pushed down on the handle and put his shoulder to the door. It was obviously stiff at first but then opened so freely that he nearly lost his balance. He stood back so that I could look in. ‘Nothing to see, just the bunks. They’re all the same.’

He had to move as I stepped in. It took a while for my eyes to adjust to the gloom. There were sprinklings of snow on the earth floor beneath the closed wooden window-hatches. The ceiling was low, the wooden double bunks lined the sides, some with broken slats, others still with remnants of old straw. The gangway down the middle was too narrow for two to walk side by side and to get between the bunks you had to go sideways. There was an old metal bucket on the floor by the door and a musty smell. It felt colder inside than out.

I walked two-thirds of the way down and stopped by the lower bunk on the left side. It was no different to all the others, of course. My guide hobbled behind me.

‘You knew someone who was here?’ he asked.

I didn’t answer. After another minute or so of fruitless and circular contemplation, I turned back up the aisle. You live with the past but you can’t live it. I left my guide struggling to close the door and headed back towards the gates. The snow was thicker now and the outlines of distant huts rapidly became indistinct. Eventually I heard him shuffling and panting and he caught up with me.

‘Is there anything else – the punishment cells, the camp offices?’

I was between the inner and outer fences, approaching the H-shaped guardroom, when he made one last effort, pointing with his stick. ‘I could show you the cookhouse. We use it. It still has the ovens and pots and pans—’

That made me stop and think. ‘No,’ I said. ‘That was the guards’ cookhouse. The cookhouse for the prisoners was that one, there.’ I pointed at a long low building just inside the inner fence.