Up ahead, it seemed that everyone just had to show their passports and documents and was then instructed to head left, over to a train that was waiting on the next platform.

‘This is it, the border,’ Mama said. The first major step in our journey to England. We were only a few feet away from being out of Germany. Despite the way we had travelled to get here and the response of the people around us, Mama couldn’t keep the excitement out of her voice.

The queue moved quickly and soon we were at the front. Mama handed over our documents and we waited while the guard peered at them, reading every word of the signed letter from the Stewarts, checking every inch of our visas, looking us up and down as though we were filth.

And then he nodded at a cubicle to our right. ‘That way,’ he said.

Everyone else had been sent to the left, where a door took them straight on to the opposite platform. The one with the waiting train on it. I glanced around to see where Kizzy and Mairik had gone with the baby. I couldn’t see them.

Please let them arrive safely.

‘We are going to England,’ Mama said. ‘We have a boat from Holland. We have to catch that train.’

The guard looked at her as he might look at an animal that had just spoken back to him. I didn’t need reminding that, to him, that was exactly what had just happened.

He pointed again at the cubicle. ‘In there,’ he growled.

We had no choice. By now, almost oblivious to the stares and the sneers as we’d had so many of them, we left the line of people and went over to the cubicle. Leaving our cases on the floor, we sat on a bench and waited.

Another guard came in after a few minutes. Like all the others, he wore a brown uniform, with a gun in a holster on his polished leather belt. ‘Get up,’ he said. ‘No sitting allowed.’ Then he pointed at our cases. ‘Put them on the bench and open them.’

We weren’t even allowed to sit down now? I lugged my case on to the bench and stood beside it. Mama did the same. Even our bags had more rights than us.

The guard pulled out everything, turning clothes inside out, throwing papers around, dropping objects on the floor. When he came to a small, old blanket, I felt Mama stiffen beside me. Why did she care so much about a moth-eaten blanket?

Then I remembered. It was the one she had sewn her wedding ring into. I closed my little finger around hers. The guard tossed the blanket aside with the rest of her belongings and moved on to my case.

Again, he manhandled every possession I had. I held my breath as I watched him, with only one thought in my mind.