PROUD pupils shared the honours in an annual prize aimed at showing how the Holocaust can teach us about today’s society.

Two schools shared the top honours in this year’s Dora Love Prize which tasked students with linking learning about the Holocaust with today’s society.

Colchester Royal Grammar and Saxmundham Free School in Suffolk won the Dora Love Prize.

The competition was founded in the name of the Holocaust survivor who lived in Colchester.

Much of her life was spent raising awareness about the dangers of intolerance and discrimination.

All of the pupils were presented with £250 by Holocaust survivor, and competition patron, Frank Bright. The grammar school students produced three films with Holocaust survivors and developed an audio book about Islamophobia plus pieces of music and art.

The students from Saxmundham designed a board game, plotting the journey of a refugee, which included checkpoints providing information about their daily struggles.

A website was also developed and social media app Instagram was to spread a message of tolerance.

The board game has since attracted the interest of the National Migration Museum in London.

Professor Rainer Schulze, who launched Holocaust Memorial Week at Essex University, said: “All projects submitted to the Dora Love Prize were of such a high standard our panel of judges found it really difficult to decide on a winner.

“In my view, all projects are winners.

“All schools shared their projects in their school assemblies, with local primary schools and other groups in their community, doing exactly what the Dora Love Prize is about - standing up against discrimination and hatred, speaking out and working for a world where everyone is accepted and respected as a fellow human being.”

Mr Bright, 90, listened to 13 schools’ projects alongside a panel of judges which included the Gilberd School and Philip Morant.

Schools across Essex and Suffolk were involved in the prize and worked with their feeder primary schools on projects to remember the Holocaust.

Entries included music, dance, video, displays, presentations, websites, and social media-drive concepts - all on the theme of Torn from Home.

Guest of honour Mr Bright has been patron of the annual competition since it was set up in 2013.

As a young boy, he was sent to Auschwitz, where both of his parents were killed.

He came to Britain as an orphan after his liberation, and featured in the BBC 2 documentary the Last Survivors.

But hundreds of pupils will be familiar with his story as he regularly visits schools across the county educating young people on the atrocities of the Holocaust.

The other entrants included Boswells School, East Bergholt High, Northgate High, Ormiston Denes Academy and Ormiston Rivers Academy.