‘But why? They’re out of control. Surely once their superiors…’ Even as I say it, I think of the order I saw on Vati’s desk, the beating to death I witnessed in the street, and I swallow my words of incredulity.

‘Their superiors. The commander ordered them to do it. They beat us constantly.’ He swallows hard. Looking down at the threadbare rug, his voice is scarcely above a whisper. ‘That first day… when we arrived. One man, his ear was beaten off his head. Another was blinded by an iron bar to his eye… Then, when we got in there, the camp couldn’t cope. I’ve learnt since, ten thousand of us were taken to that… that place in just a couple of days. There was nowhere to put us all, so we were made to stand, all the rest of that day, then all night and all the next day too. They gave us no food or water until the second evening. People were getting sick. My father, my uncle – I don’t know what happened to them. We got separated before we even arrived, put on different trucks. We weren’t allowed to move from our muster group. If we tried to speak, or escape, we were beaten, or worse.’

He stops and swallows more brandy. I rub his arms, his legs, gently, careful to avoid his bruises, his dreadfully injured hand.

‘The third day, some of us were rounded into a barracks, if you could call it that.’ His voice is becoming slurred from the drink. ‘It was a cattle shed – no windows, no light or heat, no floor, just freezing, stinking, mud. We were covered in it. There were lines of wooden bunks – well planks – four layers high, for us to lie in, one on top of the other. There were no latrines nearby. It was so cold, Hetty, bitter like I’ve never known before. If we weren’t in the sheds, we were lined up outside. They rounded us up, in at night, out in the day, like cattle. Worse than cattle. We were made to stand, hour upon hour, while they barraged us twenty-four hours a day through the tannoy system… messages about us Jewish pigs, how we cheated the Aryans, how we’ll be made to pay.’

He stops to take another drink, swaying slightly as he sits. It’s a miracle he’s even alive. A tableau of images flow through my mind. Articles from the Leipziger; Herr Metzger preaching the sins of the Jews; passages from Mein Kampf; Mutti’s warnings against the evil race: Hetty, stay away from them, stick only with good people, like us; the violence of the night of the riots. Hitler, spreading his words of hate.

All of it leading to this.

Guilt-ridden vomit rises in my throat.

‘Shh,’ I say. I don’t know why. Perhaps because there are no words. No words of comfort I can possibly summon for him. ‘Shhh.’

‘They humiliated us, utterly,’ he continues. ‘The SS Scharführer in charge of our section thought it would be amusing to make several of us share our cabbage soup from one tin bowl with no spoons. We were made to stand for hours, then sit for hours, on the damp muster ground all day from morning until night and we were refused permission even to relieve ourselves. We had to sit, walk, eat, sleep in our own piss, shit and filth! Father won’t survive this. He isn’t strong. I was there only ten days, Hetty, and I know the person I was, the person I used to be, died in that camp. This person, this shell you see now?’ He pats his chest. ‘I don’t know who this is anymore.’