Someone is talking. Muttering in a low voice.

Others join him, and soon I realize what they are saying.

Yitgadal v’yitkadash sh’mei raba b’alma di-v’ra chirutei.

They are reciting Kaddish. The Jewish prayer of mourning.

I don’t know it off by heart, but I’ve heard it in shul. I listen to the voices as if they are a song, and I close my eyes and imagine that the song can raise us out of this nightmare.

We stop again. Three times. Each time is the same. Bodies removed from the carriage and left on the ground outside.

After the third stop, we have immunized ourselves enough to the horror of it to be grateful for the benefit: we have more room.

We can breathe. We can even move a little. Vati and Otto squeeze through to join us, and the four of us stand in a huddle together. We don’t talk much. There is nothing that we can say to each other to take any of this away.

But we are together. And for now, we know what a precious gift that is.

MAX

‘This is where the new arrivals come in.’ Max’s father pointed at the train tracks. ‘They are unloaded here and join the selection queues where we sort them according to where they are best suited. Ones on the right will go to the barracks. Ones on the left go over there.’

Max looked where his father was indicating. A dusty path led to some buildings. There was smoke coming out of the top of them.

Some instinct stopped Max from asking what happened at those buildings. The same thing that stopped him asking what the stench was. He had to force himself to breathe through his mouth so he wouldn’t take too much of it in – but even doing that, he couldn’t avoid smelling it. It smelled like rotting carcasses. He had never smelled anything like it.

Swallowing the rising bile in his throat, he followed his father along the platform to the far end where a group of men were collecting cases.

‘Over there is a section that we call Canada.’ His father waved an arm beyond the end of the platform. ‘These men are collecting goods to be taken there.’ There were hundreds of cases on the platform, piled high like small mountains. The men were picking them up, three or four at a time, and carrying them in the direction of the place his father had called Canada.

Max could see the men were all dressed the same. Shapeless, striped uniforms that hung loosely from thin bodies. Most of them had either a yellow star or red triangle on their uniform. Max knew this meant that they were either Jews or political prisoners and communists.

Max’s father saw his son looking at the men. ‘This is efficiency at work,’ he said.