This week's Holocaust Day at John Masefield High School, Ledbury, was a moving and informative experience for 130 Year Nine pupils, who met two survivors from the darkest hours of the last century.

The students, aged 13 and 14, were able to discuss Nazi atrocities with the pair, both now living in London, whose lives were changed forever by racism against themselves and their families.

Born in Milan, Wanda Barford and her father and mother were able to escape to Rhodesia when Mussolini began to order the deportation of Jews to the Third Reich.

But her grandfather, twin cousins and uncle, who lived on Rhodes, were not so lucky.

Captured by the Germans, they found themselves on cattle trucks bound for Auschwitz. On route, her grandfather was kicked to death by SS guards.

At the camp itself, Dr Mengele experimented on the twins, and her uncle was sent to the gas chambers.

Mrs Barford now writes poetry is an attempt to come to terms with the devastating loss of so many member of her family.

Rudi Oppenheimer, also from London, is a survivor of the Belsen concentration camp, where both his father and mother perished.

John Masefield High School history teacher Martin Smith said: "The day went very well. It was a positive day and all the students were engaged and enthusiastic.

"It's so helpful to have people in to talk about history who were there, who know what they are talking about."

One aim of Holocaust Day is to reinforce the school's anti-bullying policy by stressing the consequences of being just "a bystander".