A STANMORE holocaust survivor told school pupils today about the horrors she experienced at the hands of the Nazis.

Children from across Harrow and north west London visited Northwood and Pinner Liberal Synagogue for Holocaust Memorial Day, held to remember the attempted genocide during World War Two.

Gena Turgel, of London Road, told how her sister was experimented on by a Nazi doctor who injected petrol into her blood stream.

She said: “It's very difficult to grasp these things that we went through – the torture, the starvation. The fear was enormous.

“We were constantly punished for no reason. The slightest little things, they could just trigger it off. They were looking for excuses to torture people.”

At one point she was even taken with her mother to a shower room sometimes used as a gas chamber to kill Jews in large groups.

But as they stood trembling on the cold stone floor it was ice cold water, not poisonous fumes, that came pouring down through holes in the ceiling.

She said she did not realise how close she had come to death until leaving the room and talking to the women who worked at the camp.

Mrs Turgel said: “They said 'you were in a gas chamber'. When I heard that I completely and utterly lost my voice. I couldn't produce any saliva.

“Nothing came through and I felt that it must have been power over power – that God must have saved my life and the others who were with me.”

Six million Jews were killed by the Nazi's during the war, in what is widely considered one of the biggest atrocities in human history.

Those that survived have had to live with the suffering they endured and witnessed ever since.

Some turn out every year to relive their painful memories in an effort to make sure the tragedy never happens again.

Mrs Turgel said: “The younger generation should learn about it. It's very painful to me. The emotional strain is considerable but if the account of my experience can broaden the scope of human understanding it is a very small price to pay.”

She spoke to an audience in the afternoon, following a morning session in which pupils from Bentley Wood High School, in Bridge Road, also learned about the suffering of Jewish people during the Holocaust.