HOLOCAUST survivor Martin Stern recently opened “Conflict and Consequence”, a display of work by Ashton Sixth-Form College students looking at war in the 20th century.

Dr Stern, was taken from his Amsterdam nursery school in 1944, at the age of five, and had to endure months in the Theresienstadt concentration camp in what is now the Czech Republic.

The exhibition forms part of Tameside Council’s programme of events to mark the centenary of the start of the First World War. Students have been working with the Holocaust Educational Trust which has helped them to focus on conflict and its consequences.

One of the most poignant items is Pagan Young’s award-winning exhibit about a teddy which was given to her by a family member who survived Auschwitz and somehow managed to keep the bear with her even though toys were strictly forbidden.

Last year, Pagan took the toy back to Auschwitz and her work, which is based on this experience, won runner-up in the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust’s artwork competition.

Accompanying the sixth-formers’ exhibits is Mark Gertler’s 1914 painting “Daffodils” from the Astley Cheetham Art Collection. Gertler was a pacifist and conscientious objector in the First World War. He chose daffodils as his subject as they have historically been the symbol for forgiveness, loyalty and compassion.

Also on display are works created by Belgian amateur artist Andre Verschaearen during his house arrest in Mechelen in the Second World War.

There is one particularly derogatory drawing of Hitler which, if discovered by the Nazis, would have condemned the artist to almost certain death in a concentration camp.

Cllr Jackie Lane, Tameside Council’s assistant executive member for culture, said: “While the First World War will be uppermost in our minds over the next four years we need to remember that the 20th century was racked by conflict from beginning to end.

“This excellent exhibition, so well assembled by the students from Ashton Sixth-Form College, gives us a great deal of reason to pause and think.”