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‘There was only us and one other Jewish family left there after the Kristallnacht attacks, and it’s been getting steadily harder since then.

My parents lost their business; they lost everything.

They went from being respected to being hounded.

Now they’re in here – or that’s what I was led to believe – on some trumped-up charge based on hatred and jealousy.

’ She swallowed hard as the fury she’d kept in check for so long came bubbling to the surface.

‘I escaped the round-up that caught them, but I can’t get to them, or help them, can I?

’ She watched him looking her over and wondering.

‘Tell me the truth – don’t sugar-coat it.

The only thing I can’t cope with is not knowing. ’

The admiration was back in his eyes as he answered.

‘All right – if that’s what you want. You can’t help them if they’re in there, no.

And Dachau is brutal; I won’t pretend it’s not.

They recruit eighteen-year-olds from the Hitler Youth who are all fired up with love of the Party and turn them into’ – he glanced down at the gates – ‘guards who don’t know the meaning of mercy.

People who’ve survived it – and some do, but rarely Jews – describe the violence inside as chaotic, without any connection between punishment and crime.

And being spared that, or released, as a lottery. ’

His words were too close to the lack of justice Hauke had experienced in Wittelsbacher for her to doubt him. She forced herself not to react to brutal or chaotic or rarely . She could see he had more to say.

‘The other thing you should know is that there are no women in there. We monitor the camp and, as far as we can make out, women who are arrested and brought to Munich – particularly Jewish women – are sent on to another place somewhere outside Berlin. So your father could well be inside Dachau like you were told, but your mother won’t be. ’

The thought of them being separated was impossible. Frieda hadn’t done well when Hauke was in prison the first time; he never did well without her. Noemi blinked hard; drew a deep breath. She couldn’t afford to waste time on tears or self-pity – she needed to be strong enough for them all.

‘You said, as far as we can make out . Do you have people in there too?’

He shook his head, but he didn’t elaborate, leaving Noemi with no choice but to find the questions that he would answer.

‘Okay. But I’m assuming you’re operating outside the law in some way, that maybe you’re Jewish too.

And that there’s a wider community here than just you.

’ Her breath came a little easier as he nodded.

‘I’ve told you a lot, which I don’t normally do, but that doesn’t mean we know each other.

I’m not asking you to trust me or tell me your secrets, any more than I’ll volunteer mine.

But I need help – I know that much. This place is full of more traps than I can see.

So I need papers that aren’t marked with a J, and a job to keep me afloat, until I work out what to do next. Is any of that possible?’

Matthias nodded. ‘All of it. As long as you understand the danger you’re putting yourself in if you go underground and pass yourself off as an Aryan.

And the danger you’ll put others in if you make a mistake or get captured, which many do.

If that sounds too frightening, I understand and I’ll walk away, if that’s what you want. ’

Be safe. For my sake, be safe.

Pascal had used safe as if it would save her, but it wasn’t a word she understood anymore; it wasn’t a state she believed in.

Her parents weren’t safe in the Nazis’ brutal camps.

If Pascal was right and Jews were being swept up all over Germany, and perhaps beyond, how could any form of safety exist?

If Hitler meant what he said about war leading to the annihilation of Europe’s Jews, why would it?

Noemi looked down at the watchtowers and the barbed wire.

Dachau wasn’t a place where people were sent for their own protection, which was also the lie that had been peddled to Hauke about Wittelsbacher.

Dachau was a place where people, where Jews, went to disappear.

No doubt the camp Frieda had been sent to was the same, and all the other camps and ghettos Noemi was certain existed even if she didn’t yet know their names.

Someone had to tell the world the truth about that.

Someone had to stop the evil. Because if they didn’t, if Germany went on and won the war and spread their prisons and their notions of vermin across Europe or further, nobody would ever be safe again.

Noemi had no idea how to fight against a regime as well honed and powerful as the Nazis.

She didn’t know if any kind of resistance was possible – she’d only discovered a moment ago that resistance was what she was burning to do.

But I think I might have found the first step on the way there.

She stuck out her hand for Matthias to shake.

‘It sounds frightening because it is, but that doesn’t worry me.

And if you’re trying to find a way to work against them, which I think you might be, I want to be part of it.

I want to derail the Nazis the way they’ve derailed me and my family, whatever that means, whatever the consequences. ’

He took her hand, and this time he didn’t just nod at her. He grinned.