Youngsters were asked to imagine the Facebook profile of a Holocaust victim as part of the launch of a competition in honour of a victim of the genocide.

The Dora Love Prize is offered each year by the University of Essex to encourage schools to develop projects ahead of Holocaust Memorial Week in January.

Dora Love was a Stutthof concentration camp survivor who received an honorary degree from the university for her work educating younger generations about the Holocaust.

The 2015 memorial week has a theme of Keep the memory alive. Projects can be performance, art or research.

Among the schools taking part are Ormiston Endeavour Academy and the Northgate High School, Ipswich, the Colne Community College, Brightlingsea, East Bergholt High School and Maltings Academy, Witham.

A launch event held at the university today saw youngsters addressed by Holocaust survivor Frank Bright and a number of experts. Workshops looked at topics including forgotten victims of the Holocaust and discrimination today.

Professor Schulze, co-ordinator of Holocaust Memorial Week at the university since 2007, said: “Through the Dora Love Prize we hope to ensure that the Holocaust is not seen by young people as something that happened a long time ago in a far-away country but as something with significance today.

“We also try to highlight that whilst the Jews were by far the largest group of victims of the Nazi extermination policy, the Nazis targeted other groups as well, including Roma, disabled people, gay men and more.

“Prejudice and hatred of people because they seem different continues in our society today, including in Britain, and we want to ask what attitudes and prejudices still prevail around us, and within ourselves, which made the Holocaust possible.”