I nodded. My throat hurt too much to speak.

‘It’s time to leave, Mr Grunberg,’ one of the men called from the hall.

‘You will get out of this country,’ Papa said to us both, his voice a hoarse croak. ‘Promise me.’

Eventually, we nodded back at him. ‘We promise,’ Mama and I said in unison.

And then he leaned in for one last wordless hug before he turned, straightened the collar of his bloodstained shirt and went to join the men.

As the front door closed behind them, I bit my lip so hard I could taste blood. I would not cry. I would not give them that. I was the man of the house now. I had to look after Mama. I had to finish what Papa had started and help Mama to get us out of here. I had to keep my promise.

For the second time in less than twelve hours, I stood by the window, lifting a corner of the curtain to look out.

I watched Papa walk down the street to the police station, flanked by three men he used to call his friends.

His crime: being Jewish.

1939

ELSA

Hitler has taken Czechoslovakia.

It’s all anyone talks about at school. What will this mean for the people of Prague? What will happen to our families, to our schooling, to us?

The tension takes over my body. I try my hardest not to think about how bad things were before we left Vienna. So bad that my parents made us leave our whole lives behind. Will we have to do that again? Will I lose Greta now, as well as Leo and Max?

Leo tells me things in his letters about how his life is now. Or he did, anyway. I haven’t heard from him in a while. Life is bad over there. Very, very bad. I can’t help thinking that everything he has described is what is now in store for us here.

Did we do all of this, uproot our lives, only to put the horrors off by a year and not escape them at all?

I’m in maths when the headmaster sends a message for all teachers to read out to their classes. We’re told that afternoon lessons are cancelled so that our teachers can learn about the changes that are coming. There are going to be new laws and they need to understand how to implement them in the school.

The others cheer at the news that we will have the afternoon off. My throat feels too gummed up to cheer. Still, I’m glad for a chance to get away from all the talking about it.