She was standing at the gates of Birkenau. A frail old woman, her legs slightly bowed, a handbag dangling from her elbow, wearing a ridiculous little hat. Her coat had seen better days and was shiny with wear. She stood alone, motionless, staring fixedly at something in front of her feet. She looked like an elderly housekeeper standing at a bus stop in a chalk-white, windswept housing estate waiting for the first bus of the morning. She glanced left and right, then turned again and for a long time she stared at the train tracks that stretched out towards the horizon, at the banks on either side, at the sky wrapped up warm in its heavy clouds, before turning to look again at the building and the watchtower. She took in every detail. I could feel something inside her cry out as she stood frozen before this threshold which was once crossed only to die. She steeled herself and walked forward under the archway where she stopped dead, I think even her breath stopped. Her head jerked from side to side as though twisted by some malfunctioning machine. It was fear, the all-consuming fear that is Auschwitz. I stood transfixed by this strange, piteous ballet in this theatre of horrors beneath a sky which left room only for grief and silence. I could tell that she was searching her memory, searching for landmarks, reference points. Memories. She stood, thinking. I would say that she felt things inwardly, evil and its mysteries scattered by time, she moved like an animal that instinctively senses the reverberations of some distant earthquake and begins to panic. But she, she did not move, no longer moved, she looked as though she could stand there forever, waiting. Then she shuddered and, as though resolved to face her suffering, she stepped through the entrance into the camp, a single step, then stopped again. She scanned the place, then turned to her right and, taking small steps, walked slowly, her head down. She had stepped into another world, this world I know so well on paper I could guide her, predict her every reaction in advance. I realised that she had lived here in this loathsome place. How I knew, I’m not sure, but in her I saw a star in my dark sky. I followed her.