‘Herta,’ he says, his voice gravelly and low, ‘I must get this baby born as fast as possible. You must be brave now, and still.’

I groan. I’m so exhausted, I just want to sleep, but suddenly the urge to push is too strong. God, I’m going to split in two!

Dr Kaufman is listening with his stethoscope again, but he is shaking his head and clicking his tongue. He has Erna and her mother running to and fro, gathering towels and water, and he’s splashing Lysol solution between my legs. My brain is working too slow to understand what is about to happen as he pulls long, tapered scissors from his bag. Erna and Frau Bäcker are each holding firm to one of my legs and I scream with the burning flare of pain as he slices the scissors through my flesh. I’m screaming and screaming and writhing and they fight to hold me still. He has another instrument in his hand, bigger than the last, but the pain is so intense that I’m swept under a carpet of darkness.

Consciousness returns as Dr Kaufman inserts the big instrument inside me and he begins to haul and twist and pull the baby from my body. Erna and Frau Bäcker still have hold of my legs which they have pushed hard against each side of me.

‘Push,’ yells Dr Kaufman, ‘push as hard as you can!’

I push and push, and Dr Kaufman pulls and suddenly, in a bloody gush, the baby slithers out.

For a beat, the room is still. The baby lies on the bed between my legs, a thick, twisted purple cord joining us together. Dr Kaufman cuts the cord.

‘It’s a boy,’ someone says.

Then silence.

Dr Kaufman is slapping the baby on his back. He’s a red-purple colour, like raw steak.

Time ticks.

He turns the baby over, wipes his nose and mouth.

‘Come on, come on,’ he says to him.

We all stare.

The silence is more than I can bear.

He coughs. A tiny movement. Then a bigger one. At last, a small cry, then a full-on howl. The tension in the room breaks and suddenly everyone is smiling, laughing, crying. They wrap him in a towel and Dr Kaufman hands him to me to hold.

‘Thank you,’ I whisper, ‘thank you, thank you.’

He delivers the placenta and cleans me up, stitching the cuts to my flesh. I barely notice, though, because for the first time, I’m staring into the face of my baby boy.

And suddenly I know love like I have never known it before.

1 August 1939

His head is covered in downy hair, so fair it is almost transparent. He smells of warm milk and biscuits. He has deep blue eyes and already he focuses them so meaningfully into mine. We are one, he and I. It’s as though he can read my mind and I his. He wants to know me. His eyes trace every contour and line of my face with such avid attention that his little mouth forms an ‘o’ shape as he pants with excitement and his arms and legs thrash about.