I saw it before me. I saw the big police vans and I saw my sister sitting inside.

‘There isn’t a thing we can do,’ said my father. ‘There’s no one to offer a helping hand.’

I didn’t know what to say. I felt exactly as I had years ago, when I saw my sister almost drown. We’d been staying with my grandparents in Twente and from there we had gone to the Dinkel River for the day. I was seven and Bettie, eight. My parents let us wade while they sat in the shade of a tree. We were picking flowers at the water’s edge, when Bettie said, ‘Look at the pretty ones on the other side.’ She took a step toward them and I watched as she disappeared beneath the water. I stood there, rooted to the spot, staring at her arm, which could only be seen because she had clutched a clump of grass. My father jumped into the water fully clothed and was able to grab her hand just in the nick of time.

For the longest time I kept seeing her arm, sticking up out of the water. By then it had turned into a very different arm. I’d look at it when we were playing together or sitting at the table, but it no longer resembled her old arm.

We had reached our house. My father went inside. I remained in the front garden and sat down on the bench. The flowerbeds were filled with daffodils and tulips. I had picked some the day before and could see the cut stems. Inside, my father was relating how the police van had driven up to the front door.

There would be no point in sticking her arm out of that window now. If she did, it would be because it was crowded inside the van, for there was no one outside to offer her a helping hand.

Camping mugs

People told us, ‘You should have been gone ages ago.’ But we dismissed that. We stayed. I was now allowed to walk to my heart’s content. Behind our house I had discovered a dirt road leading into woods where it was very quiet. Once in a while a farmer would pass by with milk cans. He’d look at the star on my coat and greet me warily, but he would have done that to anyone. Sometimes a scrawny dog walked beside me and a woman’s shrill voice came from afar.

One day I came home from a walk and found three letters in the mailbox. Three yellow envelopes with our names in full as well as the dates of our birth. These were our call-ups, official notices to report for labour camps in the East.

‘We have to report,’ said Dave.

‘I don’t feel like it,’ said Lotte. Everything in their house was still so new.

‘We’ll see something of the world. It might be exciting,’ said Dave.