Your category as a prisoner influenced your reaction. Dressed in the rough striped uniform of a prisoner, each wore a patch which indicated their group: yellow for Jews, red for Communists, black for Gypsies and anti-social elements, green for common criminals, purple for Jehovah’s Witnesses, who called themselves ‘Bible Students’, and pink for homosexuals. Alex’s patch was red. It had afforded him some wry amusement in the beginning, but he knew it would be a death sentence if the Russians reached them first.

Now, four years after being taken captive, his thoughts were turning to freedom. But how to obtain it? How near were the Russians? How far away were the Western Allies? What plans had their captors made should they come under attack? Would they resist or retreat? What would they do with the prisoners? At the far end of the camp they had built a crematorium to dispose of the thousands who died, but no one was in any doubt that it also contained gas chambers where those who were too weak to work were disposed of. Would they all be herded in there? His questions were echoed by everyone else and no amount of shouting and beating could stop the prisoners talking.

Alex began to make plans to escape, which he told no one. It would have to be done on the march from the camp to the factory, the only time they went outside the gates. Being spring, they went in daylight, but when they returned at the end of the day’s shift it was growing dark. He decided to make the attempt on the return journey at a particular spot where there was a hedge overhanging a ditch. If he could roll into that without being seen by the guards who accompanied them, he might not be missed until roll-call when the column arrived in the camp. It would give him a few minutes, no more, to get away. He began to hoard a little of his food each day.

His plans were thwarted because production in the factory suddenly stopped and they ceased to be taken out of the camp. It was a sure sign the Germans were expecting the worst. Lorries drove up and down the roads, taking the machinery and the German workers further west, and clouds of smoke in the factory yard indicated papers being burnt. No one told the prisoners what was to become of them. And their already starvation rations were cut.

The Jews had been rounded up some time before and driven away in trucks, no one knew where. Towards the end of April, the criminals, the Jehovah’s Witnesses and the homosexuals were marched out escorted by guards. Alex learnt later that as soon as they were a few miles from the camp, their guards had returned to camp, leaving the prisoners to fend for themselves. How many of them survived, Alex never knew. It left only the political prisoners and the Russian POWs still in camp. This caused more than a little consternation. They were going to be handed over to the advancing Russians. A few saw it as a good thing, their belief in Bolshevism so firm they could not envisage anything but joy and a return to their homes and loved ones. Most, including Alex, were more realistic.

Those that were left were rounded up, lined up in batches and herded out of the gates like cattle. At first Alex thought they might be going west, away from the advancing Russians, and he was content to go along with that, but after a time it became apparent they were going north. What their captors had in mind he had no idea, but his mind was intent on reaching the Allies. They had not been going for long when the weaker among them began to drop like flies and were shot on the spot or left to die by the roadside. Could he fake collapse and be abandoned? But how could he be certain one of the guards would not put a bullet in him to make sure?

As they shuffled along incredibly slowly, they met civilians trudging along the road in the opposite direction, preferring to be taken by the Western Allies than the Russians. When, at midday, they were allowed to stop and rest by the wayside and eat the crust of bread with which they had been provided, he spoke to one of the women trudging southwards. ‘Gnädige Frau, what news is there?’

He had at first thought she was in her forties, but when she came closer to answer him, he realised she was at least ten years younger than that. She was thin as a rake and her hair, which had once been dark, was streaked with white. ‘Are you German?’ she asked.

‘No. English.’

‘Ein Engländer! How did you come to be with this lot?’ She nodded at the column of men in their striped camp uniforms.

‘I was attached to the Red Army when I was captured. They took me for a Russian. How far away are they?’

‘The Reds? No more than a few kilometres. Where are they taking you?’

‘I don’t know, but I don’t want to fall into the hands of the Russians.’

‘Why not, if you are English?’

‘I can’t prove it and the Communists would arrest me for a spy. Can you help me?’

‘Why should I?’

‘No particular reason. On the grounds of common humanity, if you like. On the other hand I might be able to help you when the time comes.’

She stood looking at him with her head on one side, turning over his request. If the Germans lost the war, it would make sense for her to have helped an Englishman, a sort of insurance policy. Not that they would lose; the Führer had promised them they would drive the invaders out and be victorious. ‘I wouldn’t help a Russian,’ she said. ‘I’d spit on him. You are sure you’re not Russian?’

He smiled crookedly, better not admit his origins. ‘No, I am not Russian.’

‘What do you want me to do?’

He looked round him. Their guards were sitting on the side of the road, eating bread and cheese and swilling it down with beer while their charges stood or squatted waiting for the signal to resume the march. ‘Find me some civilian clothes. I’ll get nowhere dressed like this. I can’t pay you, not until after the war, but I will do it then.’

She didn’t ask him how that was to be achieved. ‘You want them brought to you?’

‘No, I’ll have to slip away, roll into a ditch or something.’

‘They’ll shoot you.’

He shrugged. ‘It’s a risk I’m prepared to take.’

The guards had finished their break and were rounding up their prisoners again. She thought for a moment. ‘I’ll claim you for my long-lost husband. What’s your name?’

‘Alex Peters, though I am known here as Alexei Petrovich.’

‘My name is Else Weissmann. My husband’s name was Erich.’

‘Was?’

‘He died outside Stalingrad in ’42.’

‘I’m sorry. That was a bad business.’

‘Yes. Come, I haven’t got time to waste.’ She grabbed his hand and hauled him towards the sergeant of the guard. ‘You have my husband here,’ she told him belligerently. ‘How did that come about? He is a good Wehrmacht soldier, not a Russian. They said he was missing on the Eastern Front and here he is, not two kilometres from home. I would not have known about it, if he had not called out to me. Let him come home.’

The sergeant looked Alex up and down. ‘Is this true?’

‘Of course.’ He launched into a story of being taken prisoner by the Russians who were subsequently captured by the Germans and he had been herded along with them. His German was perfect and everyone knew the Russians couldn’t speak anything but their own tortured language, so the guard laughed. ‘What does it matter?’ he said. ‘What does it matter if you all walked off? I wouldn’t have to stay if you did. Go on. Clear off.’ He turned back to hustling the rest of the prisoners into line.

Alex made a show of embracing Else. ‘Let’s hurry before he changes his mind,’ he said.

She took him back to an apartment in a block on the eastern outskirts of the nearby town of Prenzlau where she had been living. From her top floor living room they could see the smoke clearly, and even as he stood there while Else searched the wardrobe for clothes, he heard the whistle and then the bang of an exploding shell. The windows and doors rattled and some plaster came down from the ceiling onto his shoulders. He moved away from the window. ‘They’re getting closer,’ he called out to her.

She appeared with a bundle of clothes and a pair of shoes in her arms. ‘Try these.’

He was taller than her husband had been and definitely thinner; the trousers barely came to his ankles and had to be held up with a belt. But it was better than the prison uniform with its conspicuous patch. The shoes, although a mite tight, were better than the clogs he had been issued with for his march to the factory and back. While he was changing, another shell came over, nearer this time. ‘They’ve got the factory,’ she said, looking out of the window. ‘Hurry up, we’ll be next.’

They clattered down the stairs and out into the street, then dodged from building to building as more shells came over and more heaps of rubble appeared where once buildings had stood. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, when they paused in a doorway to get their breath back. ‘I have delayed you. You could have been far away by now.’

‘Where do you want to go?’ she asked.

He laughed. ‘As far from here as I can get, preferably to the Western Front, wherever that might be.’

‘Have you got any money?’

‘No.’

‘I have a little. You had better come with me. I could do with the company.’

And so he did. They escaped from the town which was rapidly becoming a ruin, plodding slowly along with hundreds of others, carrying whatever they could in the way of belongings. Some had donkey carts, some handcarts, some prams, some nothing at all. There were women and children and old men and, here and there, a soldier in a tattered uniform. Occasionally they were overtaken by camouflaged cars with officers sitting in them, their drivers hooting to make the pedestrians get out of the way. This was an exodus. No one wanted to be left behind for the Russians to find. Occasionally they met convoys of military vehicles going in the opposite direction and they learnt from experience to scatter into the surrounding woods and fields when that happened because they were almost certain to be dive-bombed.