Pupils from a Clydebank high school helped mark Holocaust Memorial Day at a ceremony today.

Ellie Fitzpatrick, Emma Mullarkey and Alexis Pratt were representing St Mary’s Primary School in Duntocher when they won the West Dunbartonshire Primary Schools Public Speaking Competition in March.

Now S1 students at St Peter the Apostle High School in Clydebank, they were chosen to deliver readings, including the Holocaust Memorial Prayer, at the flag raising ceremony outside West Dunbartonshire Council headquarter in Dumbarton this morning.

The helped Provost Douglas McAllister raise a specially-designed flag remembering those whose lives were lost or changed beyond recognition during the Nazi persecution of the 1930s and 1940s, as well as subsequent genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur.

An estimated six million Jewish people were killed by the Nazis and their collaborators during the Holocaust.

The provost was joined at the ceremony by guests from the Glasgow Jewish Representative Council, which promotes positive relationships between the community and other faith and civic groups.

He said: “It was an honour to welcome members of the public and guests to commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day in West Dunbartonshire.

“We’re fortunate here in the UK; we are not at risk of genocide. Discrimination has not ended though, and nor has the use of the language of hatred or exclusion. It is vital that we learn lessons from the past to ensure a safer future, and Holocaust Memorial Day is an opportunity to start that process.”

The ceremony marks the second year the council has commemorated the day in this way.

The commemoration was one of more than 3,600 events planned to take place across the UK to mark Holocaust Memorial Day 2016.