Holocaust survivor Josef Perl and his wife Sylvia shared their story with school pupils as part of a history project.

The students at Ashford Christ Church School listened as Mr Perl told how as an eight-year-old Jewish boy in Czechoslovakia, he and his family were forced from their homes and gathered together in the local Synagogue before being beaten and herded into cattle wagons.

These wagons carried Mr Perl and his fellow Jews to the Polish concentration camps where he witnessed the killing of his mother and four of his sisters.

Mr Perl, now 78, has visited more than 60 schools as part of his work with the Holocaust Educational Trust and as a Fellow of the Imperial War Museum in London.

The Christ Church pupils had themselves visited the museum the previous day and were clearly moved by the experience.

As Mr Perl shared his story he recalled how after committing an act of sabotage within one camp he was sentenced to death.

He escaped during the night but was shot in the process and the bullet lodged in his leg and remained there for three years while he attempted to avoid detection.

Despite surgery after the war, he still has a heavy limp.

Asked by students whether he hated his persecutors, he said: “I don’t carry hatred. You cannot carry a stone around your neck all your life. There is always a chink of light in the darkness. You cannot change the past but you can make a better tomorrow.”

When asked by another student how he could possibly bare to talk about his experiences, he added: “Today I have been your witness. Tomorrow you will be my witness. People still kill each other and children still die of starvation.

“When I see it, it breaks my heart. You are the future. You are the people who can make the world better. It is important that you build that better future.”

Towards the end of the session a candle was lit and students were invited to write down their own personal reflections.

Some shed quiet tears as they wrapped their thoughts around a pebble and placed them near to the candle.

Mr Perl told them: “You have paid me the greatest honour that I have had since I have been talking to young people. You have laid a stone to remember with me those who died.”