EVA Clarke, the youngest survivor of the Holocaust, enthralled a large, sombre audience of Year 9 students at Royal Wootton Bassett Academy with her graphic talk last Thursday, Holocaust Day.

Eva recounted the many historical events and impressions gleaned from her late mother, who died two years ago aged 96. A slide show featured a map and photographs of the notorious concentration camps and some of the Jewish people who suffered and died in the inhuman conditions that so shocked liberators at the end of the Second World War.

The rapt audience heard of the Nazi regime's escalating restrictions on Jews, who even before being imprisoned in concentration camps had to face constant terrifying threats to normal life. "People had no idea of what was to come,"Eva said. Eva , who was born in a death camp, knows how fortunate she is to be alive. "Everything I know from those times I have been told by my mother. As I got older, I gained more and more details about all that had happened," she said.

Her father-in-law, Kenneth Clarke, who had served in Bomber Command had been absolutely devastated by what had happened, Eva said.

Royal Wootton Bassett Academy teacher Nicola Wetherall thanked Eva Clarke for her memorable visit, which has given students some understanding of the atrocities that sadly are not confined only to the past.