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afterwards I looked like his little brother who’d died. But he adopted me, Lucy. He scrubbed me clean and fed me, and kept me by him. “Don’t you worry, kid,” he’d say. “You’ll be all right. You stick with me and we’ll get out of this shit.” He was coarse and people were frightened of him. I saw him hit a man with one blow and he fell as if he’d been pole-axed. Nobody bullied me with Boris around. I followed him like a little dog. I slept curled up by his feet at night.
    â€˜He talked to me, telling me about what he’d done in the war. He’d been in the SS extermination squads, killing Jews, he said. He was proud of it. “I fought the bastard Bolsheviks,” he said. “They threw my family off their land and my mother and my little brother starved to death. I fought them and the filthy Jews that were the cause of all the trouble.” He had no shame about it. But I loved him, Lucy. Can you understand how I could feel like that for such a man?’
    He didn’t wait for her to answer. ‘The German general and his officers had deserted the camp. The place was full of rumours. The Reds were killing any Russian who’d worn a German uniform, even the poor devils who had been conscripted in to labour battalions to dig earth works.
    â€˜The Ukrainians were waiting, not knowing what would happen to them. Boris had changed his uniform for an ordinary infantry soldier’s. He said anyone wearing the SS uniform was handed over to the Reds immediately. I was terrified he’d be taken away. I used to cry and he always promised me, “I’m not going anywhere without you, kid. Now stop your snivelling.” And he’d give me a great bear hug that squeezed the breath out of me.’
    Yuri was far away as he talked, reliving the trauma of those chaotic days. He could feel the heat of the sun on the trampled dusty earth and the smell of the camp was in his nostrils. ‘The British came and took our surrender. I remember the officers had a big dinner after the terms were agreed. Our commander, General Shandruk, was dressed up like a real swell. Many of them were old Tsarist officers, and some of them had been living in exile since 1919.
    â€˜The British were friendly to us. They gave food and sweets to the children and there was quite a bit of fraternizing and drinking.
    â€˜Boris didn’t mix. I could feel he was uneasy, in spite of the way he talked. He kept in the background. We didn’t know where we would be sent; one day it looked good, the next people were panicking because they heard we were going to be put on trains for Lenz. The Red Army was at Lenz. They were taking people back and shooting them in thousands. One night hundreds of Ukrainians and their families just slipped away and the British let them go. Then there was an announcement. The Ukrainians were going to be moved to a camp at Bellaria, outside Rimini. Beyond the reach of the Soviets. I’ll never forget the cheering. People were dancing with joy, hugging each other, weeping with relief. Boris got very drunk that night. He was still drunk when a British officer and four men came in to arrest him the next morning. There was a separate list of SS criminals who were being entrained at St Veit and handed over to the Reds. Boris’s name was on it.’
    Lucy saw his lip tremble and a tear rolled down her father’s cheek.
    â€˜They took him by force. He fought and struggled and I was screaming at them to let him go, while the officer held me. I wanted to go with him. I wanted to die with him. He was all I had in the world.’
    â€˜Daddy,’ she said in a whisper. ‘Don’t. Don’t. You mustn’t upset yourself.’
    He didn’t hear her. He said, ‘I begged the officer to let me say goodbye to him. I was crying and pleading in Russian; he called someone to translate. He spoke a bit of German. He said to me, “All