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This week, in our Behind the News feature, we tell the story of 80-year-old Eugene Black, of Pool-in-Wharfedale. He is one of the few survivors of the death camps in Auschwitz and elsewhere of more than 60 years ago.

His story makes for painful reading, and while it was all a long time ago, we have no hesitation in publishing the harrowing facts of what can only be described as man's inhumanity to man. We believe that there are tracts of history that should never be forgotten; incidents and atrocities that are so galling they should be a lesson to humanity for all time.

Recently we told how two pupils at Prince Henry's Grammar School went to Auschwitz, along with other people, to see the gas chambers and learn at first hand the utter horror of what went on. They returned profoundly affected by what they had seen but glad that they had made the journey. However, they are a rarity and the vast majority of youngsters these days will not have any real understanding of what the Holocaust was all about. They should read Eugene's story.

For 50 years, he never spoke about how, at just 16 years of age, he watched his parents marched to their deaths in the gas chambers, and how he became just a number, no longer being treated as a human being. Five decades later he was invited to speak at Menwith Hill and now gives talks to schools and other organisations.

His story is indeed shocking, but it needs to be told. The past is too often forgotten, just as it has been in the case of former soldier Richard Golding, who, as we also report this week, has finally received recognition of his part in a conflict in Malaysia more than 40 years ago.

Our history should be part of what makes us what we are today. However, the lessons cannot be learned unless and until they are first of all taught.

9:51am Thursday 3rd April 2008

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