More than 160 school and college students marked Holocaust Memorial Day at an event hosted by Watford Synagogue.

Year nine to 13 pupils from Watford Boys’ Grammar, Watford Girls’ Grammar, Hemel Hempstead School and Cavendish School, Hemel Hempstead, along with students from Watford’s West Herts College, attended the commemoration which also marked the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp where more than 1.1million people were killed.

The students and their teachers attended an educational workshop and were later joined by Watford MP Richard Harrington, firefighters from Watford’s Green Watch and representatives from Hertfordshire Constabulary’s Hate Crime Unit.

Holocaust survivors Eve Kugler and Susan Pollack recounted their personal stories firsthand and Eric Eugene Murangwa, a survivor of the 1994 Rwandan genocide in which an estimated 800,000 Tutsis were slaughtered by their Hutu countrymen, shared his own experiences.

Rabbi Ephraim Levine said: "It is a sad fact that race, religion, gender and disability are still used to justify prejudice and discrimination today.

The aim of these Holocaust Memorial Day events is to ensure that the horrendous crimes of racism and victimisation committed during the Holocaust and other more recent genocides - like that which took place in Rwanda - are neither forgotten, nor repeated."

Any school or college wishing to register their interest in taking part in Watford Synagogue’s Holocaust Memorial Day event next year should email secretary@watfordsynagogue.org.uk.