HOLOCAUST survivor Arek Hersh visited Bingley Grammar School to talk about his experience as a concentration camp prisoner .

The 88-year-old met with Year 9 students and then shared a Kosher lunch with them and their teacher Sajeela Shah.

Miss Shah first heard Mr Hersh's life story when she was a 19-year-old university student and was so inspired by him that she became a Humanities teacher.

Yesterday Mr Hersh told Bingley pupils how he had lost his mother Bluma, father Szmuel, a sister, two brothers and his first love in the camps and had eaten burned leather from the soles of his shoes to survive.

Mr Hersh, from Leeds, has written a book about his life, A Detail of History, and has had a documentary made about him by Unison Films called Arek.

Miss Shah, who previously invited Mr Hersh to meet pupils at her former school Benton Park in Rawdon, said it was always a humbling experience meeting Mr Hersh.

In a few weeks she will be travelling to Auschwitz with Mr Hersh, with plans to take a group of pupils to the site on a school trip.

She said: "The students have been learning about the Holocaust as part of their studies looking at tolerance and prejudice. The opportunity to meet Arek and hear his story first-hand is an experience that will stay with them for the rest of their lives. He is an inspiring and humbling man."

Later this month pupils at another district school will be acting as exhibition guides to show visitors round displays focusing on Anne Frank and Remembering Srebrenica.

The Srebrenica massacre during the Bosnian War 20 years ago saw the genocidal killing of more than 8,000 Muslim Bosnians, mainly men and boys.

Independent faith school, Eternal Light Secondary in Christopher Street, Little Horton, is hosting the displays inviting its neighbours to view the exhibitions later this month to highlight the horrors of genocide and the consequences of racial and religious intolerance.

Pupils from Years 8 to 10 at the school have now been trained up as exhibition guides as part of a peer education project called Stand up Speak out Make a Difference, working with Bradford Council's Cohesion Service who developed the displays.

Year 10 pupil Zohaib Haroon said: “We really enjoyed learning about Anne Frank and visited an exhibition last year at a different school. We wanted to bring the exhibition to our school to show the rest of our students and parents that there’s a lot to be learnt from Anne Frank’s story and what can happen if people continue to discriminate against one another.”

The Remembering Srebrenica event from Wednesday, February 23 to Thursday, February 25 will be open to schools to visit and then parents and other people from the nearby community are also being invited to visit it on Friday, February 26 but must contact the school first to arrange times.