A day of teaching will outline the horror of the Holocaust to teenagers at Easington Community School, in County Durham.

More than 200 year nine pupils, aged 13 and 14, will be given an insight into the extermination of Jews, gipsies and other minorities in German death camps during the Second World War.

The event is being held on Friday, January 26, to mark The Holocaust Memorial Day, which falls on the following day.

RE teacher Jonathan Gregory said schools throughout County Durham were being encouraged to mark the occasion, as youngsters had less knowledge of events such as the Holocaust than previous generations.

He said: "It teaches them about the issue of discrimination and the problems it can cause."

Mr Gregory is hoping a Jewish evacuee who experienced the Kinder Transport from Germany in 1939, who lost relatives in the Holocaust, will share his experiences with the pupils.

They will also be given an account of the vagaries of the selection procedure which decided who was to go to the gas chamber.

Easington is one of many schools across the county staging events to mark the recently-introduced memorial day