After we’d gone back to our room, she stuck her head around the door. ‘It would be better if you moved out early tomorrow morning,’ she informed us. Out in the hall the man put on his coat and whistled as he went down the stairs.

‘I know about a place in Utrecht,’ Dave said. ‘I’m sure we can stay there.’

‘I hope so,’ said Lotte, ‘because where else would we go?’

‘Plenty of doors are still open to us,’ declared Dave.

I couldn’t help thinking of those doors when I lay in bed that night and couldn’t sleep. I thought about the door that I had always been allowed to open on the evening of the Seder so that the weary stranger could see that he was welcome and would join us at our table. Every year I hoped that someone would come in, but no one ever did.

I also thought about the questions that I, as the youngest child, had to ask. ‘Ma nishtanah halaila hazeh. Why is this night different from all other nights, and why do we eat unleavened bread and bitter herbs …?’

Then, in a lilting voice, my father would recount the story of the Exodus from Egypt, and we would eat the unleavened bread and the bitter herbs so that we would be reminded of their bitterness to the length of days.

Separated

The three of us had agreed to wait for each other in a second-class compartment of the train to Utrecht. We had gone to the station together, but had bought tickets at different windows and passed the checkpoint separately.

Earlier, as we were strolling down Damrak, Lotte had suggested going to a movie. It had been a long time since we’d seen one. We were able to relax a bit in the dark theatre, where no one asked for your papers and where outward differences were scarcely noticeable. In front of me sat a big man whose back blocked my view, but it didn’t matter. Dave and Lotte weren’t paying much attention to the movie either. Of course it was a German movie, but the three of us weren’t really following the story.

When we came out of the cinema, it was time for us to take the train. As we neared the station, Dave said, ‘It’s better if we separate now. Let’s wait for each other in the second-class compartment.’

‘Isn’t that awfully complicated?’ I asked. ‘Wouldn’t it be easier to buy all three tickets at the same time?’

‘No,’ said Dave, ‘it’s better this way.’

‘But,’ I persisted, ‘wouldn’t you rather go into the station together? If anything happens, at least we’ll be together.’

‘Nothing’s going to happen,’ said my brother. He stepped away from us and entered the station. Lotte and I did as he had instructed us. I picked a window where the others weren’t standing, went through the checkpoint and looked for the train to Utrecht.