Holocaust survivor speaks in city

Jack Kagan will speak on Holocaust Day in Wolverhampton

A Holocaust survivor will give a talk in the Black Country about the horrors of being a Jew living in Poland during World War II.

Jack Kagan, whose family was wiped out by the Nazis, will speak on Holocaust Memorial Day.

The 76-year-old escaped from a ghetto work camp through a tunnel prisoners had dug amid a hail of bullets, in September 1943.

The lecture is on 25 January at City Campus, Wolverhampton University.

'Never forget'

Mr Kagan joined a group of Jewish freedom fighters helping the Russians repel the Germans and two years after the war ended in May 1945, he moved to London, raised a family and became a businessman.

He said: "I eventually settled down to a normal life but I can never forget the past."

He was 12 when the German SS marched into Novogrodek in Belorussia in July 1941 and changed his life forever.

The youngster endured hard labour with regular beatings. His toes were amputated in a DIY operation after frostbite set-in and he lived in fear of being executed.

His mother, father, sister and aunt were taken away and killed before they could escape.