Holocaust survivor Ben Helfgott was 15 when he was liberated from Theresienstadt concentration camp and flown to Britain for a new life.

He had lost his parents and sister and suffered other untold horrors at the hands of the Nazis, but found a home with 300 other refugee children in Windermere in the Lake District.

As one of 732 youngsters who comprised "The Boys" - orphaned Jewish children given refuge in the UK after the Second World War - he said: "We came from hell to heaven."

Now chair of the British Holocaust survivors' group, the 45 Aid Society, Mr Helfgott was due to return to Windermere on Friday with World Jewish Relief to mark the 70th anniversary of the charity bringing them to the Lake District.

Seven of The Boys will attend Friday's commemoration, with speeches to be given by Mr Helfgott and former Communities Secretary Sir Eric Pickles.

Board of Deputies president Jonathan Arkush will also be in attendance.

Mr Helfgott, who went on to represent Great Britain at the 1956 and 1960 Olympic Games in weightlifting, said that living with other children who had been through similar trauma forged an unbreakable bond.

"We had the opportunity to play football, volleyball and other games, and we quickly learned English. If someone would come see us they would never believe that we'd just come from a concentration camp.

"But we thought about our friends, our parents, our aunts and uncles who had been sent to the gas chambers. We never forgot.

"During the day, our strength was that we were a group that understood each other. We were wounded very badly but being together helped us because we had a club."

Mr Helfgott, who has an MBE for his work reconciling Jews and Poles, established the 45 Aid Society in 1963 for The Boys. He said that though only 50 to 60 of the refugees are still alive, their children would keep the organisation alive and ensure their story was remembered.

"We are an example that you can suffer and though you don't come back, you don't forget. We didn't stay in Germany or kill people; we simply went and worked and brought up our children in a very positive way. And now our children are taking over from us."

His grandchildren are members of the Society, and he said he was "very proud of them. Not only are they involved but what they do is very important, and they understand the meaning of it".

The story of Mr Helfgott and The Boys is told in the exhibition From Auschwitz to Ambleside. Produced by the Lake District Holocaust Project, it is on permanent display in the Windermere library.