Neither Ibi nor Val showed any bitterness towards the Germans – just a humanitarian hope that everyone could learn from their suffering.

When I got back to the office I had pages and pages of notes, full of childhood memories, fateful decisions, of cattle wagons, ghettos and death camps. The piece I wrote filled two pages and ran to well over 1,000 words – an ocean of copy in newspaper terms. But even then I was only scratching the surface.

Although Ibi and Val were in their 80s, I was struck by the fact that neither of them were suffering the mental deterioration of old age. They were able to speak with great eloquence about things which happened more than 60 years ago.

I had thought that day that both of them would have a good few years left. Sadly, in Ibi’s case, I was wrong. She passed away last month at the age of 85.

The couple kept the full story of their wartime experiences from their two daughters until they were teenagers.

Later in life Val and Ibi felt able to tell others about what they had lived through. Val wrote a book about his experiences and he and Ibi began to speak in schools about the Holocaust.

When I met them they had recently visited Moor End Technology College and Colne Valley High.

I hope the children they spoke to were as affected as I was by the story they heard. It was an honour to meet two people who survived the vilest of crimes and came out of it to make new lives for themselves. Their story was an eloquent illustration of the invincibility of the human spirit.

You can read about the Holocaust at great length – indeed you should. But nothing compares with talking face-to-face to those who survived it.

Unfortunately, with the passing years, these opportunities become fewer. In 10 years time or so there will be no-one left to go into the schools and tell the next generation about the Holocaust.

Slowly, but inevitably, the murder of 11 million people is passing from living history.

My condolences to Ibi’s family on their loss. I hope it is of some comfort to them to know that she lived to be 85 – more than four times older than she would have been had the Nazis murdered her as they did so many others.

I hope her relatives can look back on her many decades of happy life here in England as the best form of revenge on those who tormented her and her family during the war.