Holocaust survivor Mala Tribich visits RSA Academy in Tipton

Mala Tribich MBE was among the millions of Jews persecuted by the Nazi's, who were responsible for the murders of her mother and sister.

She found herself thrown into the squalid and cramped ghettos as a young girl which were created by the evil regime, before she became a slave labourer and prisoner at the horrific Bergen-Belsen concentration camp - where more than 50,000 people perished.

But after surviving the unimaginable and horrific ordeals under the Nazi regime, Mala, who celebrates her 87th birthday this year, rebuilt her life and settled in England where she met her husband.

Now as we approach 80 years since the outbreak of the Second World War, Mala is keen to make sure the atrocities committed by the Nazi's are not forgotten for future generations to learn.

She delivered a speech for year 10 and 12 history students at the RSA Academy in Tipton.

"I had a nice life growing up," said Mala - who was born in Piotrków Trybunalski, Poland, in 1930 - to classroom full of dozens of students and their teachers.

"But on September 1, 1939, my life changed completely. It was turned upside down. The Germans invaded Poland and everything changed."

Her family fled eastwards following the invasion, but they later returned to their home town of Piotrków Trybunalski which had been turned into a ghetto by the Nazi's - the first of its kind in Poland.

Life in the ghetto was terrible with families living in overcrowded, unhygienic conditions.

"Terrible things went on in the ghettos," said Mala.

"Overcrowding was so bad there were three families to one room. Food was very short.

"People were being deported and killed. Only people with work permits had a chance of surviving, but that was slave labour.

"I remember this one particular German officer called 'William'. I don't know if that was his first or last name.

"He used to turn up with his big, black, viscous dog. He tried to attack people in the most horrific way.

"A lot of people were shot and rounded up. In the entrance to a block of flats, a man was shot for no reason.

"The man was left there for a whole week and we had to walk passed the dead body. For children who had never seen a dead body before it was truly horrifying."

The words of Mala's were powerful and eye-opening into the world she had survived. They illustrated the horrific circumstances that Jewish people and enemies of the Nazi Germany had to live under.

Inside the packed classroom at the secondary school, dozens of pupils listened attentively to Mala's stories.

Behind her she had a projector and laser pen, where she displayed images to help her explain the lesson to the schoolchildren.

To help Mala escape the ghettos, her family paid for her and her cousin Idzia Klein, to be taken to a city called Częstochowa, posing as Christian children, where they would stay with Germans until deportations of people stopped taking place in the ghettos.

They had to travel a week apart, because it was considered too dangerous for two Jewish children to travel together. Mala recalled how nervous she was travelling to her new temporary home.

Idzia went missing while staying in their temporary accommodation, and was never seen again.

Mala returned to the ghetto and shortly after return, her mother and eight-year-old sister were rounded up by the Nazi Germans along with a larger group of people and taken to a forest and murdered.

She showed the schoolchildren a photograph of a memorial which stands within the forest grounds today paying tribute to all those who lost their lives in the killings in 1942.

Mala's life under the Nazi's continued to get worse. After her ghetto became liquidated, she was forced to become a slave labourer as a teenager.

Before then she was able to remain in contact with her brother Ben and father at this time, who had also been living in the ghettos, but they became separated.

In November 1944, she was sent to the Ravensbrück concentration camp along with her five-year-old cousin Ann Helfgott who she had been looking after.

After about 10 weeks they were transported in cattle trucks to Bergen-Belsen where conditions were appalling and Mala contracted typhus.

She recalled the 'smell and the smog' inside the concentration camp.

"People were like skeletons, there was dead bodies everywhere," she said.

"It was an absolutely horrific site. The barracks were so over-crowded."

She had survived by the time the British army had liberated the camp but she was very ill and had contracted typhus.

"I remembered seeing people running. I thought how do you have the strength to run, people could hardly put one foot in front of the other.

"That was the day of April 15, 1945, when we were liberated by the British army."

Mala was transferred to a hospital and children's home where she recovered.

Her only close family member to survive was her brother, who had settled in England.

As the lesson drew to an end, Mala took time to answer questions from the school children.

One pupil asked: "Do you hold any anger against the Germans?"

She replied: "I hold anger against the culprits."

But Mala highlighted how she felt it was important to distinguish, as ordinary German's had also suffered under the regime.

The pupil's teacher capped off the lesson by saying: "Hopefully you will talk about what you have learned to families and friends.

"This is something you won't get from me. It is a personal experience and living history."