The Second World War saw one of the largest forced migrations of people in history.

The blight of fascism and the wholesale slaughter of ethnic groups by the Nazis made millions homeless and stateless.

Thousands of Polish Jews were gassed to death in the concentration camps at Auschwitz and Birkenau. Those who escaped the slaughter faced an uncertain fate and great hardship.

Zbigniew Pniewski, 86, escaped Poland in 1940 to avoid conscription to the German army. His flight took him through Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Yugoslavia and finally to Greece.

Mr Pniewski, of Great Horton, said: "I tried to go to Italy but Mussolini had closed the border. I ended up joining the Polish Brigade of the Allied Army.

"I went to Palestine and joined the British forces there and, in October 1940, I went to Alexandria and then Tobruk. Eventually I did land in Italy and fought at Monte Cassino and then took part in the liberation of Bologna in 1945.

"After the war I came to England and was put in the Polish Resettlement Corps. The Polish government had taken away my citizenship when I left and I was not allowed to return.

"I was 19 when I escaped in 1940 but it was 60 years before I could return, in 2000.

"When I arrived in Bradford I began work with a textiles company. Life was not easy for us then. The Beaverbrook (Lord Beaverbrook) press was against us and we were accused of being fascists. But I am very thankful to the English people for the opportunity they gave me here."

Edmund Jagielski, 73, who lives in Heaton, left Poland at the age of 16 in 1939. "It was not easy to escape," he said. "All the roads were blocked by the Germans and they began to massacre the civilians when they realised there was no resistance.

"I joined the 5th Polish Infantry Division which was part of the 8th Army. My father and brother were sent to Siberia. My father returned in 1948 but my brother perished, we don't know how.

"I was demobbed in 1948 and came to Bradford. It was very difficult as the trades unions would not accept Poles as members and to work you had to be in a trade union. I eventually got a job as a chemist in a non-union shop. There was a lot of anti-Polish feeling, stirred up by the press and politicians. It was said that, at the time, 53 per cent of English people wanted to send us back to Poland, but we could not go back.

"When I first arrived in Bradford there were big signs up in Manningham saying No Poles, No Irish'. I have always had good neighbours, though, and I feel accepted here after 60 years. I have children and even great grandchildren here now. They don't speak Polish but they are proud of what their great grandad did."

Mr Jagielski knows this was perhaps his last chance to see his homeland.

"It was very important to make the trip," he said. "Especially to visit Krakow again and to visit Auschwitz and Birkenau. That is what interests us. We are very grateful to have received the grant to allow us to go."

Perhaps one of the most complicated routes to this country was taken by Lola Filio, 74, of Bradford, who was transported to Siberia in 1940.

She said: "I was taken there when I was eight. It was very cold, but I was healthy there. When I was maybe ten years old I was then sent to Tehran and then from there was moved to Uganda. I spent five and a half years there living in a camp near Kampala.

"I came to England when I was 16, in 1948; first to Cirencester then to Bradford. My father found work at Salts Mill in Saltaire. I have lived here ever since.

"I have cousins in Poland so I have been over a few times. It is always very emotional when I go and see these places."

Romana Pizon, 69, of Baildon, who organised the trip, also said it had been an emotional experience.

She said: "We spent two weeks travelling around Poland; 35 people went in all and the tour company was marvellous. The whole trip would not have been possible without the Awards for All people and I would like to thank them for their support. As a daughter of a Siberian exile myself I will remember this trip for as long as I live."