A World War Two concentration camp survivor will speak to hundreds of students to commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day (HMD).

Zigi Shipper, 87, who lives in Bushey, will deliver his speech to pupils at Dame Alice Owen's School in Potters Bar on January 24.

Zigi has spent many years travelling the UK sharing his remarkable account of life during the war, whilst educating people of all ages with a message of humanity and hope. In 2016, he was awarded the Order of the British Empire Medal (BEM) for services to Holocaust education.

Born in Poland, into a Jewish religious family Zigi was nine when war broke out. Forced into the overcrowded Lodz ghetto with his grandparents, Zigi, lived amongst the disease and malnutrition but in 1942 escaped the children’s mass deportation to Chelmno death camp. Surviving alone for nearly two years, until the ghetto was liquidated, Zigi was transported to Auschwitz-Birkenau and later on to the Stutthof concentration camp near Danzig.

As the Soviets approached, Zigi was forced on a so called death march to Neustadt, a naval town in Germany and loaded onto boats en route to Denmark to be used for slave labour. The Nazis fled as the British Air Force bombed his boat. Barely alive due to malnutrition and exhaustion, Zigi was liberated by British troops on May 3 1945. He recuperated in hospital for 3 months and moved on to a Displaced Persons’ Camp in Germany.

Zigi finally settled in the UK in 1947, where he married and now has a large family.

In July this year he accompanied the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge on their visit to the former Nazi concentration camp Stutthof were he was incarcerated.

Dame Alice Owen’s School will host the talk later this month. Created by students for students, the 350-strong audience will comprise seventeen schools from across Hertfordshire. In an act of remembrance, reflection and learning, eight secondary schools will perform using a variety of drama, film, music and readings. In addition, a commemorative memorial of student artwork will be also exhibited. This will be the Hertfordshire SACRE’s 10th anniversary HMD commemoration event – with a proud legacy of educating over 5,000 students and teachers across Hertfordshire.

Holocaust Memorial Day will be commemorated nationally on January 27.