‘Oh, the poor girl!’ Mama put her hands to her cheeks. ‘Right, I tell you this,’ she said. ‘She is to come here for tea tonight. I can’t promise anything special – you know how it is with rationing – but I can promise it will be made with love.’

‘Mama, that would be wonderful. Thank you.’

Mama’s eyes filled with tears, but she was smiling. ‘Oh, I can’t wait to have another woman in the family.’

I laughed. ‘It’s only been a few months, we haven’t exactly got married yet!’

Mama patted my hand. ‘A few months! I can’t believe you kept it from me this long. Well, we will make amends tonight.’

I leaned over and hugged her tightly. ‘Thank you, Mama,’ I said. ‘I can’t wait for Annie to meet you.’

She hugged me back. And I whispered in her ear, ‘And she will meet Papa one day. I promise you she will.’

MAX

When Max’s father told him that they were moving again, he didn’t know what to say. He knew what he wanted to say. He wanted to scream and cry and beg him not to take them away from this wonderful life.

Munich had become Max’s world. He was one of the boys at school that everyone wanted to be friends with now. He and his Hitler Youth pals ruled the corridors. Even some of the teachers had begun to fear them.

And now he was to be taken away from all of it and moved to Poland of all places! His father had been promoted again and was to become one of the senior SS officers at the largest of the regime’s work camps: Auschwitz. It was an honour for his father but for Max it felt more like a punishment, and he had done nothing to deserve it.

Luckily, Max was so highly disciplined by now that he knew far better than to argue or show his feelings. So he shut away his frustrations and instead responded in the expected way.

‘Thank you, Father,’ he said. And then, for good measure, and to show that he understood why the move was necessary, he thrust his arm forward and clicked his heels together and added, ‘Heil Hitler!’

His father returned his salute. ‘You are a good soldier now,’ he said. ‘I am glad you understand.’

Max took the gift of his father’s compliment with him and went to his bedroom. ‘Good soldier’ was the best thing his father had called him since the evening of his fourteenth birthday. It was a rare treasure and he would keep it along with the memory of the way his father had rested a hand on his shoulder that day too.

But once he was alone, the feelings rose inside him.