She had betrayed her husband and her son. She’d admitted that they had stayed behind to fight. Telling the soldiers who Flors and Cyrus were hadn’t felt so bad, as Ella was certain they were dead. Oh God . . . That’s if there is a God! If there is, how can He let such things happen? And what about me? Isn’t He meant to love me? I have suffered so much in the past, and now I’m going to die. My daughter is going to die . . . And all because my father was a Jew!

After this, the days had come and gone, marked only by the occasional bowl of slop being shoved through the door, and a trickle of light coming through the bars on the window. Ella had no idea how long she was kept there. Her fears for Lonia got her crying out in a pitiful voice for help, but no one came, and Lonia’s health deteriorated.

When the door had been finally, and very suddenly, kicked open, the soldier who entered almost vomited. The smell in the cell was repugnant, as the bucket left for them to use had long overflowed. To Ella, it had become the normal smell on waking up, and was nothing worse than she’d experienced in her past life as a nurse.

‘Go! Get out!’

For one wonderful moment, Ella had thought they were releasing her. She had stepped outside the cell, only to gasp as a bucket of freezing water was thrown over her. Trying to protect Lonia, she grabbed her child, but the woman in front of her forced her to let go.

‘The child comes with me.’

‘No, no – please.’

‘What kind of mother are you? The child is ill. We will look after her.’

Ella’s misery had deepened when Lonia made no protest, and for the first time she realized the true state of her darling baby. Lonia’s eyes were like saucers, in a face that had no flesh on it. Her teeth protruded, because her cheeks had sunk inwards.

Before Ella could say or do anything, she had been pushed back into the cell. ‘Take it! Go on, take that bucket.’

Lifting the bucket caused more of its stinking contents to spill over.

‘Hurry!’

The soldier’s words were hard to discern from behind the handkerchief he held over his mouth and nose.

Dragging the bucket out of the cell, Ella moved towards the door that the soldier indicated. The door was opened and she found herself in a yard. ‘Empty! There!’

Ella did as she was told and emptied the bucket down the uncovered hole.

‘Put it back. That lid – put it back.’

The English, interspersed with German, was easy for Ella to understand.