A HOLOCAUST survivor is to visit Worcester to talk about life as a teenager during the Second World War.

Paul Oppenheimer was 15 when he was taken to Belsen concentration camp in Germany.

He will be visiting the city during the Anne Frank Exhibition as part of the initiative to promote tolerance of different cultures.

The 73-year-old, who now lives in the Midlands, will be giving a talk at Huntingdon Hall, in Worcester.

"We had these terrible experiences and people don't seem to have learned from them," said Mr Oppenheimer.

"Similar things have been happening around the world in Cambodia, Rwanda, East Timor and Kosovo.

"People are being hunted down just because there's something different about them. We had a different religion.

"For 40 years, I never talked about it, but now interest is growing."

Mr Oppenheimer and his family originally came from Germany. But as the Second World War progressed they emigrated to Holland.

"The Nazis caught up with us there," he said.

"We had to wear yellow stars and gradually things got worse. In the beginning we were just ordinary people.

"By the time we got to Belsen we were used to restrictions.

"The camp wasn't so bad in the beginning but after a year we didn't have much to eat and a lot of people became ill."

Mr Oppenheimer's parents both died in Belsen in 1945 - his father died just a month before the camp was liberated.

"We had relatives in London and Jerusalem so we chose to come to the UK and start a new life here," he said.

"My brother and I now give talks across the country, but my sister doesn't like to talk about it - she hasn't come to terms with it."

Mr Oppenheimer will be talking at Huntingdon Hall on Tuesday, January 22, from 8pm.

It is part of a calendar of free events to coincide with the visit of the world-famous exhibition to Worcester Cathedral.

The Anne Frank Exhibition, whose patron is movie-mogul Stephen Spielberg, will be on display in the Cathedral during January.