‘It’s nice for me to have some of my English family here. I’ve been looking forward to it,’ Ben said to A.P. and Jeremy. ‘Daddy said you’re both going to Oxford University when you get home. I’d like to go there, too—’

And maybe he will, thought Howard. Who could foretell the future – well, certainly not me! Meanwhile, the rapport established in a trice between Martin’s son and mine is something good to be going on with. Ben could have no better role model than A.P., who had come through his own traumatic childhood more intact than Martin could have hoped for.

That evening, A.P. and Jeremy found themselves in an ambience their preconceptions could not have allowed them to imagine might exist in Germany.

The Munich Jewish Centre was a hive of activity that reminded Jeremy of the venues in which he had sat at meetings with Janis and Kurt in London. Posters on the walls, announcing communal functions, and people folding and putting into envelopes mimeographed information, enhanced the atmosphere.

They were introduced by Howard to a group of boys and girls of around their own age, and invited to join them at the table where they were drinking coffee.

‘Is British Jewry as concerned as we are about what is now happening in Israel?’ a sloe-eyed girl of buxom build inquired. ‘It is what we have been discussing.’

Howard had told them he had yet to meet a young person at the centre who did not speak good English and so it was to prove.

‘I should think it’s worrying to Jews everywhere,’ Jeremy replied.

‘You would like coffee or a Coke?’ one of the boys asked.

‘We’ll have what you’re having,’ said A.P., ‘and by the way, I’m not technically Jewish.’

‘Technically?’ said the pretty blonde seated opposite him.

‘My mother is Catholic.’

‘Oh,’ she replied with a smile, ‘the wrong half! I also have had that problem, but I have converted. My sister, though, she does not wish to know of the blood we have inherited from our father!’

‘Isn’t she as entitled to her choice as you to yours?’ A.P. answered.

The boy getting A.P. and Jeremy their coffee from a nearby counter returned with it to the table, and said crisply, ‘It is not just those like Helga, children of mixed marriages, who when they reach our age make the choice that Helga’s sister has. Many who are fully Jewish, like myself, have chosen to go the way of much of Germany’s pre-war Jewish community. Hitler, of course, eventually reminded them that a Jew, no matter how he denies it, remains a Jew.’

‘Even,’ said Helga, ‘if they have only a drop of Jewish blood in their veins, that may one day be used against them. How is the neo-Nazi situation in your country?’