The dormitory was unheated and unlit, save for a dim bulb that hung in the centre of the room. At one end were some washbasins and lavatories. None had doors or seats and the bowls were brown and smelly. The water was connected once a day in the morning when the women were required to wash. The baby was low down, pressing on Dora’s bladder, and for the third time that night she had to push herself out of her bunk and pad her way to the lavatory. She was cold and pulled the blanket over her shoulders as she stepped across the room, groping in the dark for the door to the washroom. As she stepped inside, someone grabbed her from behind. Dora caught her breath, went to scream as the person spun her round and aimed a knee into Dora’s stomach. Dora grabbed the cubicle wall for support. It happened so fast, but Dora smelled her, saw her silhouetted in the doorway. Agnes.

A thump like that could tear the placenta, kill the foetus. She waited until Agnes had drifted back into the dormitory, before she squatted down, shivering in the late winter cold, trembling from the attack. But it wasn’t blood she felt. It was her waters. They trickled down her leg and puddled in the dank bowl. A cramp, no more than a grumbling, began in her abdomen.

It was Agnes who took her by the arm, helped her climb the stairs into the Revier. Nurse Hoffmann wasn’t there. It was a Monday, her free day, when Dora was alone in the ward.

‘Now aren’t I being kind?’ Agnes said. ‘That’s what a Kapo’s for. To look out for you.’

Dora lay down on the examination bed, grateful for the warmth of the Revier.

‘Looks like you’ll be by yourself,’ Agnes said.

Agnes had planned this, waited for Hoffmann’s day off before she set the labour going. Dora struggled with her duties all day. Agnes did her bit but left in the afternoon. Dora was on her own as the labour began, hour after hour of racking pain, crouching on the floor, until she felt the baby’s head crown. She ran her finger round its neck, paused, blew out. The next spasm took her like a powerful wave, as one shoulder slithered out. It was over. Another wave, and the next shoulder. She had done it. The body plopped out between her legs, slick as a fish.