THE horrors of The Holocaust were reinforced when a 14-year-old Glasgow girl came face to face with survivors she shares a bond with.

Henry Wuga, 90, and wife Ingrid, 88, fled Germany after the UK allowed tens of thousands of children to escape the Nazis and seek refuge in Britain.

This week the couple visited a school in Summerston and met Ashley West, whose Polish-born great-grandparents survived the Auschwitz death camp.

A total of 1.1million people died in the camp in southern Poland, but Ashley's relatives survived because one of the guards pointed to a line of men and asked her great-grandmother who she would save, if she could.

She pointed to a man who had caught her eye.

The pair were both released and became friends, later fleeing to Scotland as a married couple.

More than 70 years later their great granddaughter met Mr and Mrs Wuga at John Paul Secondary as the couple gave pupils a first-hand history lesson about the darkest period in Germany's existence.

Ingrid, 88, will ponder the events that led to her own escape for the next few days. It happens every time she talks to pupils, she says.

However, despite their advancing years, the couple say they will continue to deliver educational talks for the Holocaust Memorial Trust, as long as they can.

Henry says: "We feel we must do it."

Henry and Ingrid were among about 10,000 children, the majority Jewish, who fled to the UK from their homes in Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia.

Around 60% of the children did not see their parents again because the majority of the adults perished in the gas chambers.

The Kindertransport was a humanitarian programme, launched by Home Secretary Sir Samuel Hoare, which ran between November 1938 and September 1939.

The persecution of Jews had started immediately after the Nazis came to power in 1933, reaching a pre-war peak with Kristallnacht (Night Of The Broken Glass) on November 9/10, 1938.

Almost 270 synagogues were destroyed, 100 people were killed, all remaining Jewish stores in the Reich were destroyed and almost 30,000 people were taken to concentration camps.

Henry says: "The persecution was horrific. To live under those circumstances, it leaves its mark.

"We knew we had to get out. I was called a "dirty Jew" on the way to school and beaten up once or twice. They would sing songs about drowning us.

"The UK Home Secretary, thank God, saved our life. This country had opened its arms to us.

"I was lucky to be picked, but it wasn't pleasant.

"We had to say goodbye to our parents and arrive in a country where we could not speak a word of the language."

Ingrid and Henry lost relatives in concentration camps, although their parents survived.

Henry arrived at Liverpool Street Station, London, from Nuremberg on May 5, 1939, aged 15. After just one night in a hostel, he travelled to Glasgow on the Flying Scotsman to the home of Jewish widow Etta Hurwich.

When war broke out, he was evacuated to the country. The only way he could contact his parents was through an uncle in Brussels.

He recalls: "I found out my father had died of a heart attack during an air raid through one of those letters.

"Finding out he was dead in those 25 words – I can't explain how traumatic that was."

Henry was later arrested on suspicion of being a spy and spent months interned on the Isle Of Man, behind barbed wire.

The Scottish authorities had refused to put him in jail because of his age.

He said: "They really suspected me. I can't blame them, it was wartime."

Through Freedom Of Information laws, Henry recently found MI5 documents that stated he was "above average intelligence", suspected of being a spy and "should be locked up".

Ingrid fled the Nazis just before war broke out and arrived in Britain, also aged 15, in July 1939 on board a Kindertransport train.

Her parents Erna and Ascher took the brave decision to follow their daughter to travel to the UK by applying for jobs as domestic servants.

Years later, Henry and Ingrid met at a refugee club in Sauchiehall Street, fell in love and married.

After the war, Henry worked in several Glasgow restaurants before setting up his own Jewish catering business with Ingrid, raising two daughters.

They now live in Giffnock and although they have returned to Germany many times to visit relatives, it is a foreign land to the couple.

Ingrid said: "I'm Scottish."

She said she still feels a shiver through her bones when she arrives in Germany, but "the moment I talk to people I'm all right."

Ashley has little knowledge about her great-grandparents since the death of her mother a few years ago, but believes their surname was Kojan.

Her great-grandmother is about 93 and living in a care home in Ayr.

"I know my great-gran was sent to Auschwitz. They were from Poland," she says.

"The guards were flirting with her. One said, 'If you could save anyone who would it be?'

"A man was going into the gas chambers and she pointed to him.

"They got to know each other and then got married and moved over here. He became my great-grandad. My dad used to tell me the story.

"It was interesting to meet Henry and Ingrid. I would love to go to Auschwitz, because it is part of my history."

caroline.wilson@ eveningtimes.co.uk