This weekened’s Holocause Memorial Day remembers the millions of people killed in the Nazi persecution and in subsequent genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, and Darfur.

The date on Saturday, January 27, also marks the liberation of the largest Nazi death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau.

The day has an extra special meaning for Hindhead-based Godalming College student Ella Norris, and three fellow pupils, who took part through the history department in the ‘Lessons from Auschwitz’ project, which is run by the Holocaust Educational Trust.

It includes a one-day visit to the former Nazi concentration and death camp, which is situated in Poland.

Shocked by what they learned Ella and her friends Naomi Waters, Laura Martin and Grace Musgrave, have now become trust ambassadors in order to help spread the word and try and ensure such acts are never repeated.

To take part, applicants had to submit a detailed letter explaining why they thought they should be chosen.

Those selected, attended a seminar, which discussed pre-war Jewish life and heard a first-hand testimony from Holocaust survivor Rudi Oppenheimer.

He described his life before the war and the friends that he made, before his family was ostracised by the society they had been such a part of.

The family of three small children managed to avoid deportation until June 1943, when they were rounded up and finally sent to Bergen-Belsen in Germany.

Rudi described the appalling conditions and the struggle for survival as increasing numbers of Jewish prisoners were brought to the camp from Auschwitz and elsewhere.

In January 1945, when Rudi was 13, his mother fell ill and died.

His father died just two months later but miraculously, the three children survived, were reunited and restart their lives in Britain.

A week after the seminar, all those on the project travelled to Auschwitz to see the camp for themselves.

Naom said: “Even with Rudi’s account it is impossible to envisage what took place.

“To try and place yourself into the situation is too horrific to bear. We saw mountains of hair, which had been shaved off the heads of every prisoner on arrival and thousands of shoes piled high, all that remained of families and children.

“The total loss of identity the victims of the Nazi regime experienced is so shocking that the people and events risk becoming an overwhelming statistic.

“Despite this, there are still survivors, and we believe it is important to carry forward their stories to the next generation, so that the truth of what took place can be better understood, and never accepted again.

“We have become ambassadors of the Holocaust Trust, which has given us the unique and valuable opportunity to keep this discussion alive.”