A HOLOCAUST survivor born in a Nazi concentration camp has relived her experiences to local schoolchildren.

Eva Clarke was born in Mauthausen Concentration Camp in Austria on April 29 1945, just a few days before the camp was liberated.

Now aged 69, she visited Durham Cathedral today to speak to around 250 County Durham schoolchildren in an event timed to mark the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.

She told children from a dozen County Durham school: “I tell my story to keep the memory alive of all the people who died in the Holocaust, and to remember all the people who had no one left to mourn for them.”

Eva and her mother were the only members of her immediate family who survived the Nazi concentration camps. Her father, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and 7-year-old cousin were all killed.

The “Keeping the Memory Alive” event, which has run for five years, was held by Durham County Council’s English as an Additional Language, Equalities & Gypsy Roma Traveller Team and Cathedral’s Education Department. Students attended a range of different educational workshops about the Holocaust, including stories from the families of Jewish people living in Nazi Germany, and an exhibition on the Third Reich’s attempted genocide of the Roma people.

Young people performed three traditional Roma songs in memory of the thousands of Roma victims of the Holocaust.

Event co-ordinator Joni Stidwell said: “We hope that our workshops will encourage our students to learn from the lessons of the Holocaust and make a positive difference in their own lives. Eva’s story is a poignant reminder of why it is important to keep the memory alive.”