THE HORROR of the Holocaust has been re-told in chilling detail by a survivor at the launch of an exhibition in Canterbury.

Hungarian-born Trude Levi spoke of her experiences in concentration camps and her narrow escape from being sent to Auschwitz.

She was speaking to an invited audience, including schoolchildren, at the Eastbridge Hospital in the High Street where the exhibition Another Time, Another Place is on show until Tuesday.

It marks Holocaust Memorial Day and has been put on by the city council with the support of The Holocaust Centre, which is a national organisation dedicated to the memory of the victims.

The audience sat in silence as Trude, 81, told of her struggle for survival, as a slave labourer in a munitions factory.

She had been working as a 19-year-old nursery school teacher in Budapest early in 1944 when the Nazis rounded up her family and friends.

One of the most poignant moments of her talk was when she displayed three photographs of her as a teenager relaxing in happy times with different groups of friends.

Then Trude told the audience that she was the only one of them to have survived the Nazi persecution.

She said: "The only words I have to account for my survival are sheer luck. Nothing more. I narrowly avoided the Auschwitz selection process but those who didn't were exterminated."

Her liberty finally came on her 21st birthday after she had been left for dead at the roadside as Nazi troops marched hundreds of starving and emaciated prisoners in freezing conditions.

She said: "I heard one of them say 'leave that one, she's not worth a bullet'."

But further persecution was to plague her after the war when she had no national status or citizenship and was branded an asylum seeker.

For many years Trude has dedicated her life to telling her Holocaust story so that others, and particularly young people, can understand its horrors.

She said: "The most important thing now is education. To teach youngsters to think and evaluate and not just accept a leader who can tell them any rubbish. We are individuals and have a moral duty to our fellow human beings."

After the talk and viewing some of the displays of images of the Holocaust some school pupils spoke of their feelings.

Josh Page,17, from Archbishop's School in Canterbury, said: "I was staggered. I didn't realise how awful it was. The bit where she showed three pictures of her friends who had all been killed was quite moving."

Tom Netts, 16, from Herne Bay, added: "I just didn't realise what a difficult time the Jews had after the war when they continued to be discriminated against."

The exhibition, which features the story of Auschwitz survivor Kitty Hart, moves to the Horsebridge, Whitstable, from January 26 to February 1 and the Central Bandstand, Herne Bay, from February 2-4.