LLANFYLLIN HIGH School had a busy end of term welcoming a new headteacher as well as listening to an eye witness account of life as a Jew under the Nazis.

Staff, pupils and governors welcomed new headteacher, Dewi Owen, who takes over in September, joining from Newtown.

His appointment finalises the new look management team at the school, with Llyr Thomas who has been acting headteacher this year, becoming his deputy.

Ann Roberts and Huw Lloyd-Jones join the team as assistant headteachers.

Year nine and 12 pupils were given a personal account of the Holocaust during the Second World War by survivor, Harry Bibring.

The visit was organised by Julie Davies, head of religious education (RE) through the Holocaust Educational Trust.

This followed a request by the school Holocaust Ambassadors Mari Jones and Elin Grug.

His talk was followed by a question and answer session.

Mrs Davies said: “The visit was organised in order to encourage students to learn from the lessons of the Holocaust and make a positive difference in their own lives.

“Harry was born in Vienna in 1925 and as a young boy experienced life under Nazi rule.”

The testimony was followed by workshops which were led by Dr John Warren, an educator provided by the Holocaust Educational Trust, which focused on perpetrators, victims, bystanders and resisters.

“The whole experience was a culmination of a study on the Holocaust and was organised to encourage students to learn from the lessons of the Holocaust and to make a positive difference in their own lives.”

Mr Bibring, 91, and his family were forced to flee Austria after the “Anschluss” when it was annexed and became part of Nazi Germany in 1938.

Mr Bibring and his sister came to Britain, with their parents supposed to join them as soon as possible.

But after war broke out on September 3, 1939, this did not happen.

His father died in 1940 and his mother was deported by the Nazis to the Sobibor concentration camp.