Tucked away in a dark and damp corner of St Joseph's cemetery in Moston is a collection of about 100 graves whose crypts hide stories of barely-conceivable suffering, unimaginable loss and incredible bravery.
This is the Polish section. Many of these tombs are official war graves of decorated soldiers, pilots, resistance fighters and nurses who fled the twin tyranny of Hitler's Nazi Germany and Stalin's 'red army' of Russia which, one from the west and the other from the east, invaded Poland at the start of World War II in 1939.
Some became underground fighters in the resistance. Many fled west and fought shoulder-to-shoulder with the British. Others were captured and put on cattle trucks to work in Stalin's labour camps in Siberia. In time, all of them would start new post-war lives in Manchester, a city with a proud history of welcoming immigrants.
