I have never lied about anything. Mutti and Vati say it is the worst thing you can do. But I no longer believe that. I have seen so much worse and I think Mr Grunberg knows better than they do about this place, so I clear my throat and say, ‘Seventeen.’

He looks at me for a moment longer, rubbing his chin as he looks me slowly up and down. I don’t like the way he’s looking at me. It makes me feel unclean, unclothed. Suddenly, he points to the right. ‘That way,’ he says, and I am dismissed.

Wait. No. He got it wrong. He sent me the wrong way.

A guard is pulling me away. ‘Please! My mother,’ I say, pointing at the line shuffling along a dusty track towards some buildings with a chimney puffing out smoke. I can see her in the middle of the group, her head bowed as she walks, her shoulders hunched over.

As I look, I notice that Vati and Otto have been sent to the same queue: Vati a few rows ahead of her, Otto limping heavily beside him. All three of them walking away from me.

Something inside me is breaking.

‘You’ve made a mistake,’ I say, panic rising like a fire inside my body. ‘My family is over there. I should be with them.’

The guard laughs. ‘Believe me, you don’t want to go that way,’ he says. And then he gives me a shove with the end of his rifle and indicates for the others walking behind me to speed up. ‘Come on. Keep moving. You should be grateful. You’re the lucky ones!’

I don’t feel like a lucky one. I feel like someone who has had everything they have ever known or loved taken away and told they have to keep on living.

I have nothing. I have no one. I refuse to let him define me as lucky. Today there are no good things.

A woman behind me nudges me forward. ‘Keep going, before they punish us all,’ she hisses.

My legs move without asking me if they should. My body lumbers forward. And somehow, my eyes find some moisture from deep inside me. A solitary tear runs down my face. All I can see in my mind is my darling mother being taken away from me, her shoulders hunched, her eyes on the ground.

Mutti!

My heart, my world, my everything.

As I walk, I keep trying not to ask myself where they have taken my family, if I will see them again, what is to become of me. My heart beats to the sound of our steps.

I want Mutti.

I want Mutti.

I want Mutti.

Eventually we get there. Wherever ‘there’ is.

Two guards are standing in front of a black gate. Above the gate, three words: Arbeit Macht Frei. Work sets you free.