Valuable lessons can be learnt by remembering the victims of a Dutch concentration camp, believes liberator Roy Smart.

Mr Smart, 79, who lives in Laycock, helped end the atrocities suffered by prisoners of Camp Vught near the Dutch town of 's-Hertogenbosch.

And he believes the recent Holocaust Remembrance Day, celebrated for the first time this year, is the ideal way to raise awareness -- of genocide and racism during the Second World War, in other wars and today.

Mr Smart said: "You can't believe people can show such inhumanity to others."

He did not actually enter the camp when it was liberated in October 1944, but saw the prisoners coming out.

Camp Vught, built in 1942-3, was divided into two -- one section for Jews before they were transferred to extermination camps and the other a security camp for Dutch and Belgian political prisoners.

Mr Smart said the Jewish prisoners were fed boiled potato peelings but others starved and risked being shot for rifling dustbins.

Camp commander Grnewald is said to have once locked 74 women into a 12 square metre cell for 14 hours. Ten of them died through lack of oxygen.

"The Dutch people knew of this place and things were smuggled in and out, but if anybody got caught they would be shot," said Mr Smart.

His regiment, Hull's 1st East Riding Yeomanry, provided back-up when the 51st Highland Division and 53rd Welsh Division blasted their way into the camp.

He was later presented with a medal by the Dutch government, but said he did not want any "heroics."

The camp became a Dutch national monument in 1990, and in 1993 Mr Smart and his wife, Annie, entered it for the first time.

They have stayed in contact with their Dutch friends and have since visited Holland several times.

Mr Smart said: "We don't know how lucky we are in this country. We were not occupied and don't know what it's like to starve."

"These things are still going on and we have to be aware of it," he said.