It’s a place very close to my heart, because two of those 17,000 migrants were my parents, both Latvians who had independently arrived in a displaced persons camp in Wurzburg, not far from the major German city of Frankfurt.

There they had met, fallen in love and been married, but they knew that their future lay in the New World rather than the Old, and fortunately they chose to come to Australia instead of Argentina. It really was a close-run thing for me being Juan Rozentals instead of John.

I recently visited Cowra to see the local Rotary Club’s Europa Park project, built as a tribute to the “courage, resolve and invaluable contributions to Cowra and Australia” of those migrants, who travelled half way around the world for the chance at a new life.

The park isn’t quite on the site of the centre, but standing there you can see where the huts would have one been. It’s on the pathway between the centre and the town, a path they my parents must have often trodden often in their relatively few months of life in what had originally been the Cowra Military Camp.

The location isn’t far east from the town along the Mid-Western Highway towards Blayney and it’s a pleasant place to visit, with informative signage, excellent picnic facilities and a pathway commemorating many of the migrants whose names are inscribed on bricks, mostly purchased for that purpose by descendants.

Especially in combination with Cowra’s world-renowned Japanese Garden which has built such a strong bond between Japan and the town whose POW camp, in 1944, was the scene of a mass escape attempt by Japanese prisoners, visiting Europa Park can form an important link with Australia’s World War II history and legacy.

Visit http://cowratourism.com.au for general tourist information about Cowra, including Europa Park and the Japanese Garden.