AHEAD of a trip to Auschwitz, students at a Bradford school were visited by a Holocaust survivor who told the emotive story of her time at the camp.

Iby Knill, aged 92, was taken to the Nazi concentration camp in Poland in June 1944, where she was held for six weeks before being moved to a slave worker hospital in Germany.

Today, Mrs Knill visited students from Year 9 to Year 12 at Bradford Academy to speak to them about her life, which she has documented in two books.

Students from the school are visiting Krakow and the Auschwitz camps on a school trip, which leaves tomorrow.

As she told the story of her upbringing in former Czechoslovakia and Hungary, and her young adult life, there was visible shock as students heard the harrowing details of the war. Mrs Knill said she was transported 250 miles in a cramped train from Hungary to the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp.

She said: “When we arrived I was registered as a political prisoner and a nurse, which probably saved my life. In the six weeks I was there, 600,000 people arrived at the camp, with the trains queuing up to bring people in. When we were taken to be showered, we didn’t know whether we were going to die or not as the showers and gas chambers were side-by-side; you just had to stand and hope for the water to come down.”

One story which evoked a big reaction from students stemmed from her time in Germany, as the hospital she worked at was being evacuated towards the end of the war.

“One woman who had recently given birth put her baby on some straw by the door on the wagon we were in to get it more air. A German officer jumped up into the wagon and stood on the baby, killing it, in front of the mother.”

Mrs Knill also brought smiles to the students’ faces, including the time she tried to get married to avoid persecution, and the day of their liberation.

“There were 780 of us marched into a German village of about 450 inhabitants, but then we saw a plane fly overhead with American flags on it, and then saw American tanks roll up and capture the German soldiers who were with us.

“They told us we were free, and we discovered the day was Easter Sunday; any day is good to be liberated but it was extra special on Easter Sunday.”

Mrs Knill married British army officer Herbert Knill and later settled in Leeds.

Steve Walker, head teacher at Bradford Academy, said: “Iby Knill’s 90-plus years are a victory over hatred, ignorance and intolerance and her experiences of 70 years ago are more vital to our understanding of today than ever before.

When the language of immigrant, control, borders, them and us, division, refugee and deportation are again common in our streets, pubs, schools and even Parliament it is time to stop and remember where such words have taken us before.

“For the 31 students travelling to Auschwitz this week they know that this journey is one to bear witness, one of self-discovery and one of a warning from history to the generations of the future.”