Two brothers are re-tracing their grandfather’s Second World War “death march” by taking part in a 700-mile charity bike ride from Poland to Germany next week.

Stuart Denyer, 35, from Balham, and Matthew Denyer, 33, from Oval, are cycling from Blachownia, in Southern Poland, to Moosburg, in Southern Germany on October 10.

Their paternal grandfather, Jack, was forced to walk the three-month, 700-mile “death march” to south Germany in 1944, after Allied Forces began closing in on German border territories.

Jack was captured in 1939 as a 19-year-old serving with the British Expeditionary Force in France, and spent four-and-a-half years captive in Blechhammer, a sub-camp of Auschwitz.

Stuart said of their upcoming challenge: “It’s a great opportunity to re-trace such a route especially with the history and family significance behind it.”

They discovered the route in their grandfather’s POW diary they found after his death in 2005, and read about what he had endured during his captivity.

But before they discovered the diary, their grandfather had never disclosed much about his ordeal.

Stuart said: “He felt that because he was captured so early on in the war that he hadn’t contributed to the war effort.

“While other boys his age were returning with stories of heroism, he just didn’t want to tell people about how he was captured.”

From the diary, they managed to find more out about the “death march” and traced about half the places on the route, which took in parts of the Czech Republic as well.

Stuart then came up with the idea of cycling it and managed to convince his younger brother to join him on the week-long challenge.

They are participating in aid of The Red Cross, a charity their grandfather supported due to their efforts to help PoWs inthe Second World War and have raised £4,000 so far and hope to reach £5,000.

Visit www.justgiving.com/Denyer to donate or visit www.deathmarchcyclechallenge.yolasite.com to find out more.