HOLOCAUST deniers are starting to make their views known to the creator of a project telling the story of children who came to the Lake District after escaping the genocide.

When Trevor Avery launched the Lake District Holocaust Project he never imagined that some people would end up "tainting" it with denials that the Holocaust ever happened and claims that Auschwitz was simply a "holiday camp."

The project tells the true story of how 300 children who survived the Holocaust were welcomed to the Calgarth estate at Troutbeck Bridge, near Windermere.

"We live in a very confusing world," said Mr Avery. "Since our project has expanded nationally our profile has become a target for people to pick on."

Mr Avery said the negative comments he received has heated up over the past couple of years.

"I've had people openly say that they genuinely believe the Holocaust never happened. Someone actually told me: 'You and I both know that Auschwitz was a camp for children and that the gas chambers were used to simply kill the lice and nits.' I was in utter shock." he said "With the increase of technology and social media there is a lot more denial and conspiracy theories being thrown about by these 'keyboard warriors'.

"People live in such a cocooned world and believe only what they want to."

The director behind the project chose to voice his concerns after a poll commissioned by the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust showed that one in 20 Britons did not believe the Holocaust happened and eight per cent said that the scale of the genocide was exaggerated.

Moreover, according to latest figures from the Jewish charity Community Security Trust, the number of anti-Semitic hate incidents in the UK has risen by 16 per cent in 2017 - the highest total since the charity began collecting data in 1984.

Mr Avery added that the fact anti-Semitism had reached into a small community like Windermere showed that these 'poisonous thoughts' had managed to spread into rural areas.

"We've been accused of global conspiracy to control the world but we are just a small local business telling one story," he said. "Some have even said the exhibition needed to be shut down for good.

"This story has now become more vital than ever to share and we need to keep gathering as much evidence in case 100 years down the line people forget, which looking at it now could happen."

"My main concerns are that people are not only denying that the Holocaust happened, but I fear that young people are also beginning to believe it," he said. "Education is now more crucial than ever and it's the only tool that can really stop these conspiracies flying out of hand."

The Lake District Holocaust project received between 15,000 to 20,000 visitors per year.