HOLOCAUST survivor Leon Greenman gave pupils at a New Forest secondary school a history lesson they will never forget.

More than 230 Year 9 youngsters at Priestlands School, Lymington, heard about the sufferings of 92 year-old Mr Greenman during the Second World War when, as a British-born Jew, he was captured by the Nazis in Holland.

He endured starvation, beatings, and disease in a succession of concentration camps - including the infamous Auschwitz. He was experimented on by Nazi doctors and saw his wife and baby taken to their deaths in the gas chambers of the Birkenau extermination camp.

At the end of the war, when he was liberated from Buchenwald camp by US soldiers, Mr Greenman vowed to dedicate the rest of his life to spreading the word about the atrocities he had witnessed.

"It could all happen again," he told the assembled pupils at the school in North Street.

"I meet people who were in the camps and want to forget, but I want the world to know what happened so they won't vote again for the Nazis.

"These young people may be only 13 and 14, but they are older in thought than people of my generation were at the same age. They can understand my message."

The visit was organised by Anna Fisher, Priestland's head of religious education, as part of a study of the 1939-45 conflict.

Priestlands head teacher Chris Willsher said meeting Mr Greenman was an amazing opportunity for pupils.

"The big lesson here is to learn from the mistakes of the past, so that we don't repeat them," he said.