train. Arc-lights mounted at intervals on tall poles lit the path and shed some light across the railway and over the snow-covered foundations of the nearer huts. The black silhouettes of their bare chimneys stood out against the white expanse in receding rows until all visible features became lost in darkness. It was impossible to see the perimeter of the camp - it seemed to go on for ever. Eventually, at the end of the railway line, I came to the memorial to the victims of Auschwitz, and on each side of it the purpose-built gas chambers and crematoria, which the Germans dynamited before they retreated from the advancing Russian army. These structures have been left untouched, mounds of brickwork and jagged slabs of ferro-concrete. In a niche in the ruins of one of them somebody had placed a small votive candle or lamp, of the kind you see in churches, and perhaps synagogues, in a red glass vessel. Its feeble flickering flame was the only light in this part of the camp, and the only sign of life in the landscape of death. I hoped it would last through the night. I stood for some minutes watching the flame, until the cold began to chill my bones; then I retraced my steps. My taxi was all alone in the car park, its engine running to keep the heater going. I was the last person out of Auschwitz that day.
I apologised to the driver for keeping him waiting. He gave a grunt and shoved the gear lever into first, making the back wheels sashay in the snow as he accelerated away. I was grateful for his taciturnity on the way back to Cracow. I wanted to go over in my mind all I had seen that afternoon, ensuring that it was safely stored in my memory. I was engaged to have dinner with the British Council’s Language Officer in the evening, but I decided to call him and cancel it. It was to have been nothing formal, just the two of us, a dutiful offer to keep me company on my last evening, but I didn’t really want to talk to him about Auschwitz, and I didn’t want to talk about anything else. Suddenly I was impatient to get home and tell Fred about it. I had called her only twice, from Warsaw and Lodz, and we didn’t talk for long. If I use hotel phones with my hearing aid in place I get a feedback howl in my ear, and it’s a struggle for me to hear what she’s saying without it. She told me that Anne had been sent home by the maternity hospital and advised to take things very easy - no reason for alarm there. She had phoned Dad, and he seemed disorganised but OK. He asked her who Richard was. ‘Bloke called Richard says he’s coming to see me - what d’you think he wants?’ She told him. I was glad that Richard had responded to my hint.
I nodded off in the back seat on the return journey: the car was warm, and I was very tired. I woke as we stopped abruptly at an intersection near the city centre. It was Friday evening, the pavements were crowded, and lights blazed from shop windows stacked with food, laptop computers and designer sportswear.Auschwitz seemed as far away as the moon. When we got to my hotel I paid off the driver and gave him a generous tip, which provoked his first smile of the day. The girl at the reception desk smiled too. ‘A message for you, Professor,’ she said, plucking a folded piece of paper from the pigeonholes behind her. ‘I take the call myself. Congratulations!’
I unfolded the message form. ‘Mrs Bates phoned at 3.15 p.m. Your doghter birthed a baby boy today. Mother and baby both fine.’
I went to my room and called Fred, who gave me all the details she had received from Jim: the baby was born that morning, four weeks premature, smallish (five pounds seven ounces) but perfect, the labour lasted about six hours, Anne tired but blissfully happy, Jim present throughout and over the moon, in short all good news. ‘And how are you, darling?’ Fred asked, when we had exhausted this topic. ‘I’m all right,’ I said. ‘I went to Auschwitz today.’ ‘Did you?’ She sounded surprised: I hadn’t told of her of my plan in case I changed my mind. ‘Was it awful?’ ‘It was unforgettable, ’ I