Do not hate anyone, never give up and be nice to each other - those were the messages passed on to students at a local school by a Holocaust survivor.

Zigi Shipper visited St Albans Girls’ School, Sandridgebury Lane, to share his gripping story with over 200 people.

Introduced by his granddaughter Holly Simons, a Year 13 student, he told his audience he believed he was the luckiest man in the world because he survived against the odds.

Zigi spoke about being taken to the extermination camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau when he was just 13.

He managed to stay alive with the help and support he received from boys he worked alongside, whom he regarded as his only ‘family’.

After liberation in May 1945 Zigi was miraculously reunited with his mother in Hamburg, with whom he lived until he married his French wife in 1954.

Following his talk Zigi lead a special candle-lighting ceremony made up of seven candles - six for the six million Jews who lost their lives during the Holocaust, and the seventh for subsequent genocides throughout the world.