HOLOCAUST survivor Ruth Lachs was forced into hiding and separated from her parents at six years old while her brother was sent to his death.

Now the Prestwich pensioner has decided to talk about her experiences in a bid to teach a new generation about the horrors of the past.

The 69-year-old says she would not be alive today if it hadnt have been for the selfless people who had put their own lives on the line to help her.

"The Holocaust obviously conjures up images of terrible suffering and oppression but there was good among the bad. The way people helped protect me, putting their own lives at risk was incredibly touching and something I shall never forget.

"So many people helped me along the way. I was looked after by several families and hidden away with other Jewish children in a home for the disabled, but the kindness I remember most fondly was that of both a Jewish nursery nurse and a student, who with other non-Jews, were working to save Jewish children from transportation to the death camps.

"The student whisked me away from a sandpit at a Jewish collection point. The nurse had told me to hide there while the SS were doing a count. After the war I was sad to learn that this brave man had been caught and executed. The Jewish nurse was sent to a concentration camp but thankfully survived and now lives in America."

Mrs Lachs was born in Germany but her parents had to flee the country when she was two-years-old. They went to Holland but were separated when she was six when the Nazis invaded.

She gave an account of the atrocities at a Holocaust Memorial Day event at Buile Hill Park in Salford last Thursday.

She explained: "I was asked to talk at the ceremony and its something I want to do for educational purposes. I want to make sure that people dont forget. Youngsters should realise there was a war and not forget how bad things were."

Mrs Lachs, who still works part-time as a medical technician at Tameside General Hospital,moved to Manchester in 1962 when she married her husband Werner, aged 79. They lived in Manchester for 25 years before moving to Prestwich 17 years ago.

Holocaust Memorial Day has been an annual event in the UK since 2001. Usually held on January 27 to coincide with the liberation of Auschwitz, it was held a day earlier this year in respect of the Jewish Sabbath.

The day is held to commemorate all victims of such atrocities during and since the 1940s to ensure that they are never repeated.