STUDENTS have heard the harrowing tales of a Holocaust survivor.

Joanna Millan was only three when her family was killed in the gas chambers during the Second World War, young people at The King's Academy, Coulby Newham, were told.

Even the fact her grandfather had been awarded the Iron Cross for bravery in the First World War was no bar to his persecution.

For two years, Joanna endured the appalling regime of a Czech Jewish ghetto with the support of five other children, overcoming guards' brutality, starvation rations and disease.

Her survival story was so remarkable that it has been studied by Anna Freud, the daughter of psychologist Sigmund Freud, who was looking into how children could endure such cruelty without the help of adults.

Even when the group was liberated by Russian forces and resettled in the North of England, the children continued to be self-reliant, students heard.

Now a grandmother, Ms Millan has spent the past few years tracing her family background and piecing together the cruelty they endured at the hands of Nazi Germany.

"The Holocaust was 70 years ago, so why do we still learn about it in schools?" she asked students.

"It is to make sure it does not happen again."