DRAWINGS of Nazi concentration camps by a famed Black Country artist are being displayed at Dudley College in the run up to Dudley’s Holocaust Memorial Service.

Internationally-renowned Robert Perry from Wordsley spent three weeks working at the former death camps of Auschwitz and Auschwitz-Birkenau back in 1997 to create a grim reminder of the sites which are now designated as a World Heritage site, museum and memorial.

Mr Perry’s abhorrence of extremism in all its forms, of injustice, intolerance and racism, compelled him to undertake working pilgrimages to the sites of 20th century inhumanity and barbarism.

He said: “Armed only with my drawing and painting equipment, my cameras, a Polish phrase book, a map and some German Deutschmarks – which I hoped to exchange for Polish currency when I crossed the border – I set off.

“I went through France, Germany and Poland, heading for Auschwitz, with no knowledge of Poland, its geography, its language or its currency."

During his visit he made a series of drawings and paintings documenting the chilling remains of barracks, guard towers, barbed wire fences, gas chambers and crematoria at the sites where more than one and a half million people were murdered during the Holocaust.

Mr Perry added: “Auschwitz is a grim place, with a lot of lessons to teach and thoughts to provoke.

“Everyone should visit it once in their lifetime."

The 14, A3 drawings have previously been displayed at Huddersfield Art Gallery in an exhibition entitled Against Hatred and they will now be on show at Dudley College's Broadway Campus until the Holocaust Memorial Service on Friday January 29.

The service, organised by Dudley North MP Ian Austin and Dudley College Students' Union, starts at 12.30pm and will include a talk by Holocaust survivor Susan Pollack.

Mr Austin said: "Robert is a brilliant local artist and it is great his work is being displayed at the college in the run up to the service.

“The drawings of Auschwitz-Birkenau are very poignant as this is sadly where the speaker Susan was sent in 1944 with her family.

“Our annual commemoration is always a very moving and dignified service which everyone is welcome to. I hope people will come along on the 29th to attend the service and see Robert's work."