SCHOOLCHILDREN read extracts from a survivor’s story to help mark Holocaust Memorial Day in Dorchester.

The event at the Corn Exchange yesterday was attended by members of the public and the community.

Pupils from Sunninghill Preparatory School took it in turns to read extracts from Val Ginsburg’s tale of life in a concentration camp.

Mr Ginsburg was born in Lithuania and, along with 14 members of his family, forced into the Jewish ghetto of Kaunas by Nazi invaders.

He was the only member of his family to survive the Holocaust.

The crowd also heard from Harry Glenville, who was one of ten thousand Jewish children to be sent to the UK by their parents between 1938 and 1939 in the Kindertransport initiative.

His parents and grandmother were murdered in Auschwitz.

Meanwhile, in Weymouth councillors and local residents gathered for a Holocaust Memorial yesterday.

Weymouth and Portland Mayor Graham Winter said: “There were a good bunch there to think about persecution and what it means.

“There were poignant readings and stories and I was privileged to say a few words.

“It’s important to remember the atrocities of the Holocaust and the terrible things that have gone on since in Bosnia, Rwanda, Cambodia and even Darfur today.”

School children and members of the Dorset Race Equality Council were also part of the crowd who gathered in the hope that understanding the past can shape future behaviour.