London's Deputy Mayor Richard Barnes joined Holocaust survivor Zigi Shipper at a special assembly at Bishop Challoner Catholic Collegiate School in Tower Hamlets in advance of Holocaust Memorial Day, which falls next Friday.

The assembly was led by sixth-formers Zeinab Jobber and Shannon Lashmar, who visited Auschwitz in October through the Holocaust Educational Trust's "Lessons from Auschwitz" project. They said it had impressed on them the importance of standing up to prejudice.

Mr Barnes - who has responsibility for community cohesion in the capital - has also visited Auschwitz with the HET, saying it "brought home the industrialisation of hated". Mr Shipper recounted his experiences as a boy during the Holocaust, particularly his time in Auschwitz.