Two students from Holy Family Catholic School, in Keighley, have visited the Auschwitz Nazi death camp in Poland, where more than a million people were murdered during the Second World War.

Sophie Moran and Rachel Moran (not related), both in year 12, travelled as part of a group funded by the Government and organised by the Holocaust Educational Trust.

They were accompanied by students from many other schools across the Yorkshire and Humber region. They spent half a day being shown around the Auschwitz 1 concentration camp and the nearby Birkenau extermination camp.

These two complexes were part of a Nazi plan to eliminate Europe's Jewish population, together with all political opponents and others deemed "racially inferior".

Holy Family's head of history, Emma McConaghy, accompanied the sixth formers. She said: "There was a very big group of us in total - more than 200 - including students, politicians and some members of the media."

The pupils were able to view the gas chambers where so many people were killed and also saw piles of shoes, clothing, suitcases and other possessions taken from the victims before they died.

Group members also viewed the camps from a guard's watchtower and were shown the wooden huts which had been crammed full of ill and starving prisoners.

Ms McConaghy added: "Like everybody else our students were incredibly touched by the visit. The main benefit was that it made this aspect of the past much more of a reality."