5

The night he had been arrested, Kurt had been frog-marched along the street to a waiting tarpaulin-covered lorry. There, along with several other men, he had been forced into the lorry, already so full of crushed humanity that it seemed impossible to cram in any more. Kurt stood, his arms pinned to his sides, with his face pressed against shoemaker Martin Rosen’s back. Manfred Schmied, the tailor from along the street, leaned heavily against him, and Rudy Stein, who had once been a teacher at the local school, was actually standing on Kurt’s feet. More and more were pushed into the lorry at gunpoint, until finally even the Gestapo could see there was no room for more. The engine roared into life and with a sudden jolt the lorry pulled away. In the back men cried out as the movement tipped and twisted them, crushing them violently against their fellows. Someone’s bladder failed and there was a strong smell of urine close to where Kurt stood. Someone began to sob quietly to himself, and the noise of general lamentation filled the lorry.

Kurt lost track of time as the lorry rumbled and bounced its way out of the town. He could no longer feel his feet. He could hardly breathe, for the smell of sweat, urine and faeces that had filled the covered lorry was almost tangible. Others had been overcome by it and the stench of vomit was added to the mix. When they finally stopped, Kurt had no idea of how long they had been travelling in the nightmare vehicle. The stop was only for a moment or two. Outside they could hear shouted orders and then the lorry jerked forward again, bumping across an unpaved surface, before it came to a halt once more, and at last the canvas flaps were thrown up, letting the warm night air flood in. They were still unable to move, but gradually those at the back either fell or were hauled out, and the crush began to lessen.

“Out! Out! All out!” The guards prodded them with rifles, jabbing ribs with the barrels, or smashing the butts across heads if anyone moved too slowly.

“My God! What a stink!” cried one of the guards as he climbed up on the tailgate. “You can tell this lot are Jews! The truck stinks to high heaven!”

Kurt heaved himself awkwardly off the lorry, and at the prod of a rifle followed Martin and Rudy into the line of men that had formed up outside. Manfred was soon beside them, and they stood and waited as the last of the men were unloaded. Some were unable to stand, their cramped legs giving way under them, but kicks from the SS guards and the lash of a whip soon had them crawling over to the column of men and hauling themselves upright.

An SS man barked an order, and the column shuffled through a set of heavy gates, above which were inscribed the words “Work Makes You Free”.

“We’ve been brought to a work camp,” Kurt thought, and an icy-cold fear crept through him. There had been rumours of such camps, but they were for Communists, criminals, enemies of the state. Why had he and the others been arrested? He knew, of course, knew that it was because they were Jews. Jews with businesses. Jews who had no business to make money out of honest Germans. Jews who recently had come together to form a local committee to try and protect themselves from the ever-increasing persecution. Jews who were making a nuisance of themselves. Jews.

Someone further up the line fell over, and was almost trampled as the column continued past him, stepping over him, before coming to a halt in front of a squat, square building. With Rudy Stein on one side of him and Manfred Schmied on the other, Kurt waited. The sun came up behind the building, and out of the corner of his eye he could see other buildings away in the distance, surrounded by barbed wire.

And so they waited, and waited, as the sun rose higher, its heat pounding their unprotected heads. Some, unable to withstand the heat, keeled over, collapsing in a heap on the ground. No one made a move to help them, no one dared move as the SS guards stalked the lines, whips in hand, pistols in their belts, looking for signs of rebellion. The sun rose to its zenith, and still they stood there until at last an SS officer appeared from inside the building. He strode out in front of the drooping column of men, and raising his voice began to harangue them.

“I am Oberführer Hans Loritz, commandant of this camp,” he announced, adding ominously, “and you will get to know me.” He pointed his finger, drawing it along the line of men. “You are the dregs of humanity. You are enemies of the Reich, and now you have been brought here you will work for the good of the German people. You will stay here until you have, through hard work and re-education, understood the error of your ways and can be returned to society in safety. You will stay here for as long as is takes.” His voice had risen as he spoke and now it was almost a screech. “In the meantime you will work. You will be obedient to the guards. No disobedience or weakness will be tolerated. My guards have been well trained and they will be watching you. If you fail to obey an order, you will be punished. If you are slow to obey an order, you will be punished. If you break camp regulations, you will be punished. If you incite other prisoners to rebel, you will be punished. If you don’t work hard, you will be punished. If you show lack of respect to your guards, you will be punished. You are here because you are not fit to live among decent Germans. You will stay here until you are fit to return… however long that takes.” He walked over to one of the men who had collapsed in the heat, and kicked him in the ribs. “While you are on parade you will remain at attention at all times… or you will be punished.” His eyes roved the phalanx of men standing before him, as if searching out resistance, recalcitrance. The prisoners remained rigid, unmoving, as the guards continued to stalk between the lines.

“Registration will now begin!” With this order Hans Loritz turned on his heel and strode back to the building.

When he had disappeared the guards marched the first rank of prisoners to the door, where again they waited in line. The rest continued to stand in the sun. No one spoke. No one moved. The commandant’s words echoed in their heads and the roving SS guards ensured that there was no break in the ranks.

At last their turn came and their line moved forward. Kurt stood in front of a desk and gave his name, address and date of birth. The SS sergeant wrote it down meticulously in his ledger. He then looked up at Kurt.

“Why have you been arrested?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Kurt replied. As the words left his mouth he was struck a powerful blow in the back. He staggered forward, only just maintaining his feet.

“Stand to attention, scum!” screamed a voice behind him, and Kurt caught himself from turning and managed to draw himself upright again.

“You are here because you are an agitator, a dirty Jew stirring up other Jews,” said the sergeant, continuing in a bored drawl, without looking up. “Based on article one of the Decree of the Reich President for the Protection of People and State of 28th February 1933, you are taken into protective custody in the interest of public security and order. Reason: suspicion of activities inimical to the state… or as I said,” and now he did look up again, his eyes narrowing, “you’re a dirty Jew stirring up other Jews, and until you’ve learnt better, you’ll stay here… and work!”

Work Kurt did. Work they all did, from first light, throughout the day, until they dragged themselves back to their huts to sleep. The prisoners’ compound was surrounded by coils of barbed wire, overlooked by five watchtowers, where ever-vigilant sentries manned machine guns. The sleeping quarters were housed in bare concrete buildings that had once been an explosives factory. Within a wall and surrounded by a high electric fence, they stood in ranks on either side of a track that led to the parade ground. Kurt, Rudy, Martin and Manfred were assigned to the same hut.

Once their details had been taken, they were photographed, had their heads shaved, were stripped of their clothes and given prison garb, little more than ill-fitting white overalls. Any personal possessions they had, including money, had been logged in another ledger and taken from them.

“There is a canteen where you can buy what you need,” said the corporal who listed their effects. “The cost will be deducted from your money.”

“What happens when it runs out?” Manfred had dared to ask.

“Then you can buy nothing more,” snapped the man. “What do you think this is? A charity home?” He gave a harsh laugh. “Your family can send you more money. That is how it works.”

“But they don’t know where I am!” Manfred had not yet learned to keep his mouth shut. A sudden lash from behind made him stagger, crying out and clasping his neck where a dark red weal sprang to life.

Kurt, Rudy and Martin, waiting in line, kept their eyes rigidly ahead. The guard with the whip had turned his attention to them. He walked along the waiting line, flicking his whip at the unmoving prisoners, enjoying the fear in their staring eyes. The SS, indeed well trained for such work, had begun their work of dehumanising their prisoners.

Once their “registration” was completed, their group was lined up again, and clutching the few possessions they had been given, a few items of clothing, a bowl, mug, knife, fork and spoon, they were marched into the prisoners’ compound to the huts they’d been assigned.

As new prisoners they had to find bunk space among the already occupied bunks. Shuffling into the hut, they were confronted by a tall prisoner with an aggressive face, and few teeth.

“I’m Horst Kleiber,” he told them. “I’m the sergeant of this hut. I’m in charge of everything in here. You do what I tell you, at the double, and we’ll rub along. You don’t, you’ll be in dead trouble because then we’re all in the shit. Got it?” They got it, but it was almost impossible to comply with all the regulations. The first morning, Kurt was struggling to make his bed. His was a top bunk, and as he wrestled with the bed sheet his feet disturbed the bed of the man below him.

“Watch your sodding feet!” roared the man. “They’ll be here in two minutes!”

In less than that time, two SS guards came into the hut and checked the beds and the cupboards. Manfred’s cupboard was deemed to be untidy, though he had only the socks and the mess tins handed out to him the previous day. One of the guards upended the cupboard onto the floor and then beat him with steady blows of his whip until the contents were replaced. Everyone else in the hut stood to attention in silence as this punishment was inflicted, each praying that his bed, his cupboard, would pass muster.

Life in the camp was sheer hell. Every morning they got up at first light, and once the hut had been passed as tidy by the guards, which seldom happened at first inspection, Kleiber led the section out to parade as a platoon for roll call. Then it was labour. Hard labour. The camp was to be rebuilt, extended, to accommodate more prisoners, with improved quarters for the SS guards and their families. All the old buildings had to be torn down and replaced. Everything was done at the double, and any man seen flagging was kicked or beaten.

Kurt and Manfred were on the same work detail and spent much of their day as human draft horses, pulling huge wagons laden with stone from place to place. Always at the double, always at the mercy of the whips and rifle butts. Rudy, who was older and smaller, was on a similar work detail, but he struggled to keep up. He needed glasses, but even though it meant he had difficulty in seeing where he was going, he seldom wore them.

“Take ’em off, mate,” advised Horst Kleiber. “They always pick on blokes with specs, think you’re intellectuals!”

He was right. After two such encounters with the SS guards, Rudy took his glasses off.

Horst had been arrested several years before because he was a Communist. As an old hand, he knew how best to work the system to make life fractionally easier. He was a fierce hut sergeant, roaring at anyone who risked getting the whole hut punished, but he was also scrupulously fair when it came to division of food, his Communist principles allowing every man equal shares. Kurt, Manfred, Martin and Rudy were the only Jews in the hut, but though Horst would probably have had no truck with them outside, here he ensured that they received their fair share. He was responsible for discipline in the hut, and that affected everyone alike. As the four friends settled in, other inmates taught them tricks that helped them escape the attentions of the guards. No one in the hut wanted to draw the attention of the SS.

As the weeks progressed there was an awful inevitability about their lives. They had each been allowed to send one postcard to their family at home, to say where they were, and to ask for money.

“They make a nice little profit on their canteen,” Horst pointed out when Kurt expressed surprise that they were allowed to communicate with the outside world. “They need you to have money to spend so that they can insist on your spending it!”

The canteen provided some of the necessities of camp life. It was possible to buy, at a price, a little extra food, and although this was often almost inedible, they ate it anyway; anything to stave off the ever-present gnawing hunger. Clothes had to be repaired, and precious funds had to be used to buy needles and thread. Clothes in disrepair were the excuse for further beatings at the hands of the guards.

Rudy grew steadily weaker. The others helped him whenever they could, but on work detail it was every man for himself. Helping a struggling comrade almost certainly earned you the lash of a whip or the kick of a jackboot and did the comrade no good at all.

“I’m going to die in this place,” Rudy said dismally one evening when they had collapsed on their bunks after an extended evening roll call. “I can’t go on like this.”

“You can and you must!” insisted Kurt. “Don’t give them the satisfaction.” He looked across at his old friend, and took in his emaciated state. They had all lost weight, the meagre diet and hard physical work had ensured that, but he saw now that Rudy was in a worse state than the rest of them. The flesh had fallen away from his face, so that his skull seemed to strain through the parchment of his skin. His arms and legs, poking from under his camp overalls, looked skeletal in the harsh light of the lamp. But it was his eyes that told Kurt that Rudy was right. There was nothing in his eyes, sunk into the hollows of his face, but a blank stare; the life had gone out of his eyes.

“It’s all right for you,” Rudy said. “Most of the time I can’t even see where I’m going. They shout ‘Tempo! Tempo! Los! Los!’ and I don’t know which way to run.”

The next day he was detailed to break up the concrete blocks from one of the demolished buildings. Swinging the heavy hammer was beyond him, and one of the guards, a sadistic bully called Schuller, grabbed the sledgehammer from Rudy’s grasp and swung it himself, smashing it down onto Rudy’s legs. With an agonised scream, Rudy collapsed, his legs useless beneath him. Blood streamed, soaking through his grubby white overalls, as he writhed on the ground with pain.

Schuller looked down at him dispassionately and said, “That is how you swing a sledgehammer.” He looked round the rest of the crew. “Why aren’t you working?” he bawled. “Does anyone else want a demonstration?” The rest of the detail turned away from Rudy, trying to close their ears to his agonised cries. Schuller looked down at him with contempt and then pointed to the man nearest to him. “You! You take him back to his hut. On the double! You’ve five minutes to be back here!”

It was Kleiber whom he’d chosen. Kleiber dropped his hammer and bent to Rudy. There was no way he could carry him without subjecting him to further agony, so he simply picked him up and hoisted him over his shoulder, his smashed legs dangling behind, his blood pouring onto the gravel. Kleiber took him back towards the ranks of huts with Schuller’s bellow of “Tempo! Tempo!” echoing in his ears. When he reached the hut he laid Rudy on his bunk. He was no longer screaming, he had passed out with the pain. Kleiber tried to straighten the damaged legs, but he could see that Rudy would never walk again.

“Poor bugger! Better off unconscious,” Kleiber muttered as he looked down at the motionless body. “Better off dead, now.”

When they returned to the hut at the end of the day, they found Rudy was indeed dead. His bed was soaked in blood, his pale face a mask of agony.

Kleiber told them what had happened. “Nothing we could have done for him, poor bugger,” he said. “He was a goner as soon as that bastard Schuller raised the sledge.”

Kurt looked down at the man whom he’d known all his life. Rudy, the teacher that all the children had loved, lying in a pool of blood with his legs smashed.

“What happens to him now?” he asked Kleiber.

“We take him out to roll call,” replied Kleiber. “Now!”

“We what?” Kurt was incredulous.

“He’s not reported dead yet, is he?” Kleiber sounded weary. “If he’s not on parade the numbers won’t tally and we’ll all be out there all night. Remember last week?”

How could they forget it? For some reason the numbers at evening roll call had been out and the entire camp had stood there for six hours under the glare of the searchlights before being allowed to crawl back to their huts for a couple of hours’ sleep before reveille.

“He’s your mate, you can carry him,” ordered Kleiber, and Kurt and Martin lifted the now stiffening body of Rudy Stein and solemnly carried him out onto the parade ground to be counted. By the next evening Rudy’s body had been disposed of, and his bunk, scrubbed for an hour by Manfred to remove the blood, had been taken by a new prisoner.

That night Kurt lay on his bunk and thought of home, aching for his beloved Ruth and his children. It was at night that he was at his most wretched. Despite the need for sleep, he found that he lay awake, in dread of what the following day would bring. Would he even survive it, or would he, like Rudy, be murdered by one of the guards? How long would he be in this hellish place? He had been called to the administration office, and a list of his “crimes” had been read out to him. Joining his local Jewish committee made him a troublemaker. Until it was clear that he had atoned for this, had renounced such action again, he would not be set free. He was sent back to his work detail with the SS officer’s words ringing in his ears.

“We’re watching you, Friedman. You’re an agitator. We’re watching you!”

It was a week later that Martin Rosen disappeared. In the morning he was at roll call, at the end of the day he was not. As the men paraded ready for roll, Kleiber was shouting at them. “Where the fuck is he? Someone must know!” But no one did, and as they lined up for roll, they knew that it would be their hut’s fault that the numbers didn’t tally. The wrath of the SS would come down on them. Pale-faced and rigid with fear, Kleiber’s platoon took their place on the parade ground.

Then a miracle happened. Roll was called but Martin Rosen’s name wasn’t. Incredulous, they were dismissed, and within minutes of returning to the hut, a new prisoner came through the door. Kleiber allotted him Martin Rosen’s bed.

“Where can he be?” Kurt muttered to Manfred as they ate their meagre evening meal. “What’s happened to him?”

“Daren’t even think about it, after what happened to poor Rudy,” Manfred said, scraping his bowl with his fingers to scoop up the last drop of the slop that had been in it.

Klaus Herman, another in their hut, looked across from where he sat. “He was in our work party this morning,” he said. “He was called to Nero’s office. Haven’t seen him since.”

Kurt gave an involuntary shudder. Nero was the prisoners’ name for the commandant. A call to his office usually meant some great punishment was about to be administered, usually in front of the full complement of prisoners. It was Oberführer Loritz’s way of reminding them all that they were at his mercy… and that he never showed any. What could Martin have done, he wondered? Was he even now being tortured in the punishment block?

“Whatever’s happened to him, he’s not coming back here,” Kleiber told them. “They’ve filled his bunk!”

What had happened to Martin Rosen remained a mystery, and that mystery was only revealed to Kurt when he too was called to the commandant’s office a few weeks later. He was working in a detail that was digging foundations for the new huts. It was backbreaking work, and was carried on with little respite, though the winter weather had made the ground rock-hard. They had stopped for the half-hour allowed for their midday meal when Kurt had received the summons. He stood up shakily. His legs felt like jelly, but he managed to walk across to the gate which led from the compound to the administrative block. He was taken to a cell, and told to stand to attention while he waited to be called. He stood, stiff and still for over an hour, wondering why he had been called. Trying to remember anything that he had done… or not done… that might have earned him a stint in the punishment block, but he could think of nothing. Not that that mattered to the SS. There didn’t have to be a reason for them to punish you, they simply did it because they felt like it, because they enjoyed it. These thoughts were no comfort to Kurt as he stood, still to attention, waiting.

At last the door swung open and at a barked order from an SS corporal he marched out and followed the man along a corridor, through a door into another part of the building, and was finally brought into an office. Here seated behind a large desk sat Oberführer Loritz. He paid no attention to Kurt at all. Simply went on writing something in a large book before him. Kurt waited rigidly to attention, as did his escort, until finally the commandant looked up.

“Who is this?” he demanded and the corporal snapped out a “Heil Hitler” before replying. “Kurt Friedman, sir. Jew.”

“Thank you, Corporal, you may leave us.”

The corporal snapped his heels and saluted again, before leaving the room.

For a long moment the commandant stared at Kurt, and Kurt, terrified of making eye contact, stared at a spot above the Oberführer’s head.

“Friedman,” the commandant said at last. “A Jew. Do you know what we want to do with all Jews, Friedman?”

Kurt hesitated for a moment. Which was the right answer? Yes or no? Which did the commandant want to hear?

“We want to get rid of the lot of you,” Oberführer Loritz answered his own question. “One way or another we want to get rid of the lot of you. Do you understand, Friedman?”

“Yes, sir.” Kurt’s voice was hardly more than a croak.

“Yes, sir,” mimicked the commandant. “I doubt it, Friedman. I doubt it. But you,” he pointed at Kurt with a pudgy finger, “you are lucky. You are going to be given the chance to leave here.”

Kurt’s head began to spin.

“To leave here provided you promise to take you family and leave Germany.” Loritz paused a moment and then went on. “Are you prepared to give that undertaking?”

Kurt gulped for air, enough air to allow him to speak. “Yes, sir.”

“And where would you go? Do you have relations abroad?”

Kurt’s mind continued to spin. He had no relations abroad, his family had lived in Kirnheim all his life, had run the grocery in Gerbergasse for most of it. No, he had no relations outside Germany.

“A cousin in America, sir,” he said, without actually deciding to say it.

Oberführer Loritz sniffed. “America is full of Jews,” he remarked. “It will be their downfall.” His eyes drilled into Kurt. “And this cousin, will he vouch for you?”

“I’m sure he will, sir.”

“And then there is the question of your property here. You own property, I understand.”

“A shop, sir,” replied Kurt, adding when this elicited no comment, “with an apartment above it.”

“Your property would be forfeit of course. You will have no need of it and it can be sold to a good honest German family.” His eyes bored into Kurt. ”And the money will, of course, revert to the state.”

Kurt swallowed. “Of course, sir.” The money might revert to the state, but much more likely to Nero’s bank account.

How would they live if the money paid for his property didn’t come to him? How would he live if he didn’t get out of this hellhole camp? There was only one way to get out of here, one way to get back to his family and try and get them to safety somewhere, and that was to agree to whatever this man said. If Kurt said anything but ‘Yes, sir’ he would be back in the prisoners’ compound and he might never see his family again.

Oberführer Loritz pulled a paper from under the book in which he had been writing, and pushed it across to Kurt. “You will sign this to say you and your family will be out of the country in three weeks, that your property will revert to the state, and that you will never return to Germany again.” He looked up at Kurt. “Do you have title deeds to this shop?”

“Yes, sir.”

“They must be lodged with the Emigration Office in Munich. Within the three weeks.” The commandant held out a pen. “Sign!”

Kurt grasped the proffered pen and signed. He had no chance to read the document he had signed. He had no idea whether he had agreed to any other conditions not stipulated by the commandant, but he knew it was his only chance of freedom, so he took it… and signed.

“One more thing, Friedman,” snapped the Oberführer. “I want to hear no slander about how this camp is run. Prisoners here work hard, but they are well fed, and rewarded for their work.” He paused and his eyes held Kurt’s. “Is that understood, Friedman?”

“Yes, sir, quite understood.”

“I’m glad to hear it.” Oberführer Loritz’s voice was ice-cold. “If you are found to be spreading malicious lies about the camp and its staff, you will be arrested and returned here immediately. Immediately! Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir,” replied Kurt, ready to agree to anything. “Yes, sir, I understand.”

Things moved very quickly after that. He was taken back to the Jourhaus, the building where they had all been registered on the first day, and was given his own clothes back. He changed into them, but they no longer fitted him, hanging off him like a big brother’s cast-offs.

“You look like a scarecrow,” scoffed the SS soldier who oversaw his departure. He picked up Kurt’s wallet and peered into it before handing it back to him. It was exceedingly light. Kurt doubted if he even had the bus fare home, but he didn’t care. All he wanted to do was to slip out through those fearsome gates and run for his life.

The gates clanged shut, but Kurt didn’t dare run; he walked away from the camp without a backward glance. He knew if he looked back one of the guards would shout at him, drag him back inside, and close those awful gates behind him. He had been allowed to leave, but even as he hurried away, he dreaded hearing his name called. It would be a game to them.

“Halt, Friedman! Where do you think you’re going?” And if he didn’t stop he would be shot in the back. Shot while trying to escape. He’d seen it happen.

Fear crawled over him as he continued to walk away. Surely this hope of release would be withdrawn; surely this was yet another cruel punishment. Let him think he was free and then, as he actually, actually began to believe it, bring him back, back into the nightmare that was Dachau.

Despite his determination to keep walking, Kurt’s panic overtook him and he began to run. Running was easy. Running was what he’d been doing for the past four months, running in the camp had kept him alive, but even as his feet pounded on the road that led to the town of Dachau, he expected the guard dogs to be unleashed, to hear them give tongue, to feel their teeth tear into him. When, daring at last to glance over his shoulder, he realised he was no longer within sight of the camp, and there was no pursuit, he allowed his pace to ease a little, caught his breath and then settled down to a steady jog.

When he got off the bus in Kirnheim, Kurt walked from the bus station, along the familiar streets of his childhood, and turned into Gerbergasse. It was late Monday afternoon, a time when people would normally still be out and about their business, but the street, though not quite deserted, seemed to Kurt abnormally quiet. Then he realised what the difference was. There were no children to be seen. No children playing in the street; no sound of little girls chanting as the skipping rope slapped the pavement, no excited shouts from boys playing football or scuffling in the dust. There was not a child in sight.

He walked on, past the synagogue, which, he noticed, had new doors, not the ornately carved ones he had always loved and admired, but plain, untreated timber on utilitarian black hinges. His step hastened as he passed familiar shops, some with boarded-up windows, to the corner where his own shop was… had been. He stared in horror at what he saw. It, too, was boarded up, but not just the window, the door as well, a haphazard criss-cross of planks nailed into a blackened doorframe. Dark swathes of soot streaked the walls, and the blackened frames of the upstairs windows gaped to the open air. For a long, disbelieving moment, Kurt stood quite still, staring at the ruin of his home. Terror clutched his heart, a physical pain. Ruth! Where’s Ruth? The children? Were they there when the fire broke out? Are they safe? Did this happen the night of his arrest, or later on? Where are they now?

Turning his back on the burnt-out blackened shell of his home, he rushed into the Meyers’ bakery on the other side of the street. Leah Meyer was behind the counter as he crashed through the door. She looked up, fear leaping in her eyes, to see who had burst in so violently. The fear turned to astonishment and then pleasure as despite his scarecrow appearance, hollow cheeks and shaved head, she recognised him.

“Herr Friedman!” she cried. “You’re back! God be praised! You’re home.” She hurried round from behind the counter to clasp his hand and pump it up and down.

“Where’s my family?” demanded Kurt. “Are they safe? What happened?”

“Yes, yes,” she assured him. “Don’t worry! They’re safe. They escaped the fire. Your wife took them to your brother. They are living with him.”

Kurt sank onto the chair beside the counter, suddenly exhausted. “Thank God!” he murmured. “Thank God for that.” He gave Frau Meyer a weak smile. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to frighten you. What happened? What happened to the shop? How did it catch fire?”

At that moment Leo Meyer came into the shop from the bakery behind. When he saw Kurt sitting by the counter he rushed over to him, clapping him on the shoulder. “You’ve come back, Kurt. Thank God you’re safe.” He turned to his wife.

“Put up the shutters, Leah. Let’s close up.” He turned back to Kurt. “We don’t stay open after dark anymore, it isn’t safe. It’s bad enough in the daytime. You’ll stay with us for the night, eh? Before you go to Munich to find them?”

He helped his wife put sturdy wooden shutters in place across the window. “Protects the glass from stray bricks,” he explained as he slid the metal bar into its socket and snapped the padlock closed. “Wouldn’t stop anyone determined to break in, but it slows them down.”

Once the shop was secured, the Meyers led the way up the stairs, to the apartment above.

“I expect you’re hungry,” Frau Meyer said, and without waiting for Kurt to admit it, went into the kitchen to prepare some food. She had taken in his emaciated face and the way his clothes hung off his body.

“Tell me what happened,” Kurt said to her husband as he sat down. Leo took out a cigarette case and passed it over to Kurt, before taking a cigarette himself and lighting both.

“It was the night of the riot, the night you were arrested,” he said. “You saw the mob, the frenzy they were in.” Leo shuddered at the recollection of that night. “We were lucky that night, we only had our windows broken. We locked ourselves into the bakery, or they would probably have arrested me too.” Leo inhaled deeply on his cigarette, letting the smoke fill his lungs. “Well, when the SS took you away, the mob set fire to your shop. They’d already tried to burn the synagogue, and they got the taste for fire. They weren’t people anymore, not people, just one huge howling beast. Your shop was there, it belonged to a Jew and so they set it on fire.”

“But Ruth? The children? You said they were all right. They weren’t hurt? They got out in time?”

“Thanks to the courage of your wife,” Leo replied, “they all got out. But it was close. She managed to lower them down from the upstairs window. She had to jump herself. She sprained her ankle, but amazingly that was all.” Leo drew hard on his cigarette. “She is a brave woman, your Ruth.”

Over the meal that Leah had prepared, the Meyers told Kurt how Ruth had found the deed box; how she’d been attacked by the Hitler Youth; how she’d refused to burden the Meyers any longer.

“She was determined to take them to your brother,” said Leah. “She wouldn’t stay with us any longer. She did write though, just once to say they’d arrived.”

“It’s where I told her to go if necessary,” Kurt said, “but I didn’t really think she’d have to.” He looked across the table at his neighbours, a couple he had known for years, but with whom he had never been close. “Thank you,” he said simply. “Thank you for all you did.”

Leah raised her hands. “Who would not?”

“She was right to go,” Leo told him. “No one’s safe round here. Oh, we try and get on with our daily lives, but it is more and more difficult. Our shops are continual targets for the Hitler Youth and as soon as we make repairs they come by again. Several of the local children have been beaten up by these gangs, and there’s no redress, no justice. Parents are keeping them indoors now. Since the new laws, we have no status.”

“For the first time in my life, I’m glad we weren’t blessed with children,” Leah said. “All my married life I prayed for children, begged God to give me just one child, but now I see the wisdom of His refusal. We won’t have to watch as our children are bullied, humiliated, injured, maybe even killed.”

The silence that followed the bitterness of these words lengthened as all three of them contemplated the dark void of the future.

“You’ll stay with us tonight,” Leo said at last. It wasn’t a question and Kurt felt another wave of gratitude for this couple’s generosity.

“Thank you,” he said. “I will. Then in the morning I’ll go to Munich.”

“Did you see the others, the others who were arrested the same night?” asked Leah tentatively. “Martin Rosen came home, just for a few days, and then he took his whole family and left. He didn’t say much.”

Kurt wasn’t surprised, Martin would certainly have been warned as he had. “Yes, Martin was there,” he said. “He got out before me. So, he’s gone?”

Leo nodded. “Yes, he’s gone.”

“But he had to leave everything behind,” said Leah. “All the tools in his workshop, all the furniture in his house. The Gestapo watched him pack up. They wouldn’t let him take anything that the family couldn’t carry between them as they walked out of the door.”

“One day they were there, the next they were gone.” Leo shook his head in disbelief. “There’s another family living in there now. Not Jews of course, but some official who works on the railway.” He looked across at Kurt. “Reckon someone would have moved into your place if it hadn’t been so badly damaged. No one can afford to repair it.” Leo passed Kurt another cigarette, and Kurt drew on it gratefully. He had no intention of telling the Meyers, or anyone else, that he had agreed that the state should take over his property.

“I shall go and have a look at it tomorrow before I go,” he said. “Just in case there is anything else I can salvage.” His mind flicked to the money he had hidden in the unused bread oven beside the stove in the living room. Was there any possibility it would still be there?

“Were Rudy Stein, or Manfred Schmied with you?” Leah was asking. “Do you know anything about them?”

Kurt forced his mind back to her question. “We were all together in one hut,” he said, “Rudy… died. He found the camp regime difficult and… and he wasn’t strong enough. I think Mannie is still there.” He drew deeply on his cigarette. “He may be released. I was let out because I agreed to collect my family and leave the country. I’ve got three weeks to prove to the authorities that we are emigrating… somewhere, otherwise I shall be sent back to Dachau, and the children will be put in an orphanage.” His face was bleak as he explained, “And God knows what will happen to Ruth.” He shook his head in despair. “I told them I had a cousin in America.”

“And have you?”

Kurt shook his head. “No, but unless I could convince them I had somewhere to go, they wouldn’t have let me out. This way at least we have a chance.”

Kurt spent the night in the bedroom his children had shared weeks earlier, and as he lay on the hard little bed he thought about them all. Ruth, his Ruth, so brave, so resourceful, saving the children from the fire. Finding the box, taking them all to Munich. Thank God they had got there safely. At least Herbert was there to look after them all until he, Kurt, could get there. Kurt thought of his children. Laura, only ten, but far older than her years, made to grow up too fast by what her life had become in the last few years. Inge, beautiful, spoilt, only six, but used to getting her own way. She seemed almost unaware of the animosity that surrounded them all. And then the twins, just three, prattling happily together as they played, so wrapped up in each other that they only seemed to be complete when both were there. His beloved family. Somehow he had to get them away, out of this benighted country, his family’s home for generations, which no longer accepted them as citizens, regarded them as subhuman.

He thought of his father, Amos, wounded fighting in the trenches for the Kaiser and the Fatherland. It hadn’t mattered then that he was a Jew, when the army was haemorrhaging men and every soldier was needed at the front. He’d been good enough to be a German then. And when he came home, limping from the shrapnel still lodged in his leg, Amos had slipped back into life as a shopkeeper, and brought his sons up to be both good Jews and good Germans.

Kurt had lied to them in Dachau and he knew it was a risk. He had no cousin in America, something the SS could discover easily enough if they bothered. He knew they had little chance of going to America, but they had to get out somewhere, and he had such a short time to make the arrangements. Thank God Ruth had found the deed box. She would have all the family documents safely with her, but, most important now, the deeds for the shop, which he must deliver to the Emigration Office in Munich. She had their passports, too, except for the twins’. Although Kurt didn’t expect the authorities to make it easy, they would probably allow him to put them on his, simply to get rid of them all.

But where they were going to go, and where the money was going to come from, he didn’t know. He had his watch and Ruth had her wedding ring, and he thought he remembered there were a brooch and some earrings in the box, which might fetch something. Otherwise they had no money. Any cash there might have been would, he realised, have been spent long ago.

Eventually, sleep overtook him, but it was a sleep beset with dreams; dreams of Dachau, dreams of the lorry that had taken him there, of the children calling his name, and the nightmare that finally startled him awake, Ruth on fire. She was running towards him, flames devouring her clothes, crackling through her hair, Ruth screaming, screaming to him for help, and he rooted to the spot unable to move as the fire engulfed her.

Kurt sat bolt upright in bed, his heart pounding, cold sweat running down his back, staring into the darkness. He could still hear her screams echoing in his head, and see the agony on her face.

There was no going back to sleep. Indeed Kurt didn’t dare, the nightmare had been so vivid, so real, he knew if he closed his eyes it would return. He switched on the light, and sitting with his eyes wide open waited for his racing heart to slow. He spent the rest of the night planning what he would do.

As soon as it was light, before much of the street was awake, he crossed the road again, and, with a claw hammer borrowed from Leo, levered the planks from the door and went into his shop. It was cold, dark and dank. Rain had blown in through the gaps in the planking, and the smell of damp soot was strong and acrid.

The shop had been gutted by the fire. There was nothing left but a smoke-blackened shell. The staircase was gone, and parts of the ceiling had collapsed, leaving the charred rafters exposed above.

Kurt looked up at the rafters, and then went back across the road to the bakery.

“Have you got a ladder I can borrow?” he asked Leo. “I need to try and get into the apartment, and the stairs have gone.”

“I have,” Leo said, leading him out to the back, “but be very careful, the whole building must be very unsafe.”

“I will,” promised Kurt, hefting the ladder over his shoulder.

“And don’t be long,” warned Leo. “If you’re seen, someone will report you for looting.”

“Hardly looting, it’s my own property!”

“Since when did that make any difference to the Gestapo?” replied Leo.

Kurt took the ladder over to the shop and set it up where the stairs should have been. Cautiously he climbed, not even sure if the beam supporting the ladder would take his weight. It appeared to do so and he scrambled up onto one of the more solid-looking rafters. The floor had burned away, but the old timbers of the house were thick and strong, and although they were scorched and blackened, most of them seemed to have survived the fire. Carefully Kurt edged his way along the landing till he reached the doorway of his bedroom. There was little left to see, all the furnishings and furniture were ash. He crossed the landing and looked into the girls’ room. Here it was the same, with only the remains of the old iron bedstead, a twisted misshapen mess, melted against the window. Water had been poured in to quench the fire, and with windows open to the rain the room was cold and dank. Reluctantly Kurt looked into all the rooms. The boys’ room had fared little better, and the comfortable kitchen living room, which had been the centre of their family life, was a blackened mess. Here, however, the damage had been caused more by smoke and water than by fire. Kurt edged his way into the room, fighting back tears as he saw what was left of their home. Then something caught his eye, stuffed into the corner of a chair. He reached out and pulled it clear.

“Bella!” he cried aloud, and hugged the doll, Inge’s favourite toy, convulsively to his chest. “Bella!”

Then, at last, he turned his attention to the old bread oven. Crossing the floor gingerly, he opened the heavy oven door and looked inside. There, kept safe from the smoke and the flames by the cast iron of the oven walls, lay the envelope into which he had put some of the money he’d taken from the bank. A wave of relief washed over him. He had what he’d come for. Now perhaps they had a chance. Hurriedly Kurt stuffed the envelope into one pocket of his jacket, and catching up Bella stuffed her into the other. Then he made his way back through the apartment, to the top of the ladder. As he passed the broken window that overlooked the street, he suddenly heard the tramp of marching feet. He didn’t have to look out of the window to know who was approaching. He was trapped in his own apartment, with his own money hidden in his coat, and the SS were coming down the street.

Kurt thought of Leo’s warning about looting. He reached the ladder, but realised that if he went down now, he would be caught coming out of the shop. He had no proof that it was his, and even if he had, it would probably make no difference. As the tramping feet drew closer, he made a grab for the top of the ladder, and heaved, pulling it upwards, out of sight. The weight of it made him stagger backwards, and he sat down hard on a beam, but his foot pushed through the remains of the burnt-out ceiling, protruding into the shop. Frantically he struggled, trying to pull free so that he could finish pulling the ladder out of sight from below. Outside the sound of marching feet grew louder, and then, at a barked order, they stopped. As Kurt finally extricated his foot from the ceiling, and heaved the ladder upwards, he heard a raised voice from the street.

“Someone has broken in here. Weissen! Müller! See what’s going on here!”

There was the sound of feet, and a crack of timber as more of the planks were ripped away from the front door.

“No one here, sir,” called a voice.

“What about upstairs?”

“There aren’t any stairs, sir. Place is burnt out.”

“Any sign of looters?”

“Nothing worth looting here, sir.”

“Clearly someone’s broken in, Weissen. You’re to stay here. Guard the door until we can come back and investigate properly.”

“Yes, sir.” Weissen sounded resigned to his duty. Outside another order was given and the tramping feet resumed, as the rest of the troop marched away.

Kurt found he had been holding his breath. Now he let it out, and as silently as he could eased himself out from under the ladder. For a long moment he listened. Weissen was still in the shop, but when Kurt heard the scratch of a match and the smell of cigarette smoke, he knew that the soldier below wasn’t taking his guard duty very seriously. He didn’t think there was anyone there, and he wasn’t expecting anyone to challenge him from the street.

But Kurt was still trapped, and they were coming back. He felt the panic rise within him, as he listened to the movements of the man below. He had to get out, but there was no escape that way.

Get a grip on yourself, Kurt thought fiercely. Get a grip on yourself and think!

He edged back along the landing until he reached his bedroom. Here the window overlooked the small yard below. Treading softly on the remaining rafters, Kurt crossed to the window and looked down. It was quite a drop, for the yard was lower than the level of the shop floor.

It’s the only way out, he thought, and I have to try. He considered bringing the ladder along the landing, but realised straightaway that this was almost impossible. The ladder was heavy and unwieldy and would almost certainly make a noise that would alert the guard below. Reluctantly he dismissed the ladder and looked down again into the yard. The buildings next door overlooked it as well, but there was nothing he could do about that. He would have to risk being seen, it was a lesser risk than staying where he was, waiting to be discovered… with the money in his pocket.

It was impossible to open the window as the metal frame had been distorted by the heat, but that same heat had shattered the glass. A few shards were still embedded in the frame, but the gap was wide enough for Kurt to slide through if he were careful. With one final glance behind him, he reached through and grasped the top of the frame outside. Sitting on the sill, his legs still inside the room, he edged himself through the gap until he was crouching on the broad outer windowsill. Once he glanced below and shuddered. It seemed a long way down. Shutting his eyes for a moment he calmed himself, and then began to ease himself over the edge of the sill. Grasping the bottom of the window frame, he lowered himself until he was hanging, arms extended, down the side of the building. There was no going back, and no hanging on for much longer either. He gave a quick glance downward and then, steeling himself to let go, dropped the final twelve feet onto the paved yard. The drop jarred his ankles, but he flexed his knees to absorb some of the jolt as he landed and rolled over on the stones. His hands were bleeding from where they had caught on the embedded glass, but otherwise he had no real injury, and he was quickly on his feet again. He scrambled over the wall at the end of the yard into the alley beyond, and made his way along its narrow length towards the street. Before he emerged he blotted the blood from the cuts on his hands on the tail of his shirt, and, praying he wouldn’t meet the Gestapo, walked as slowly as he dared back towards the bakery, entering it as just another customer.

Leo looked at him in horror and murmured, “You must go, now.” His eyes flicked to the door, and Kurt, following his look, saw the SS soldier standing outside his own burnt-out shop.

“I’m sorry,” Kurt said, “if I have put you in danger.”

Leo thrust a newly baked loaf into his hands and said, “Go and find your family, Kurt. Go now. We can’t do anything more for you here.” He turned away from the window, and Kurt, with the loaf in his hands, left the shop, walking away along Gerbergasse for the last time, without a backward glance.

He didn’t reach Herbert’s apartment block until late in the afternoon. He had never been to his brother’s home before, and he was relieved to find it was in a respectable suburban area. It was clearly not a Jewish enclave, as Gerbergasse was. The shop windows, displaying their various goods, were unbroken; there was no red paint daubed on their doors. Indeed some had notices proclaiming “No Jews served here”. If Herbert lived and worked in such a place, then he must be completely accepted by his neighbours, and Ruth and the children would be safe.

Suddenly Kurt ached to see them, to hold them in his arms once more. He went into the apartment building and peered at the names beside the column of bell pushes in the hallway.

None of them was Friedman. He ran his eye over them again to be sure he hadn’t missed it. No Friedman. He went back into the street to check the number displayed on the building itself, wondering if he had walked into the wrong block. No, on the outside wall, clear for all to see was the number 15. Elbestrasse 15 Apartment 3c. That was definitely Herbert’s address. Kurt went back inside and looked at the number on the door of one of the ground-floor flats. 1a. The others were 1b and 1c. 3c must be on the third floor. He climbed the stairs and stopped outside the door of 3c. The name beside it was Schultz. Kurt rang the bell.

“I’m sorry to trouble you,” he said to the old woman who opened the door a crack and peered out at him, “but I am looking for Herr Friedman.”

The woman scowled. “He doesn’t live here anymore.”

“But he did? You said ‘anymore’. I’m his brother.”

“Another Jew,” remarked the woman with distaste. “Well he’s gone. I live here now!” She began to shut the door, but frantic for news of Ruth and the children, Kurt stuck his foot in the doorway.

“I’m looking for my wife… my children,” he began.

“Oh!” the woman gave an unpleasant smile. “The Jewish orphanage! They’ve gone too.”

“But… gone where?”

The woman shrugged. “How should I know?”

“But where did Herbert take them?” As he spoke Kurt took a step back and the woman immediately slammed the door.

“Nowhere,” she cackled from inside the flat. “He didn’t take them anywhere. The Gestapo took him! He’s been arrested.”