In 1939, 25-year-old Polish cavalry officer Slavomir Rawicz was sentenced to twenty-five years of hard labor in Siberia following a torture-induced "confession" in Moscow. In 1956, he was living peacefully in England with his English wife. The years between are detailed in The Long Walk, the classic tale of Rawicz' trek with seven others to freedom.
Rawicz tells his story from the calm, relaxed vantage of a decade's separation from the events. If anything, this detached approach lends additional power to the tale. He spends less than a chapter detailing his torture at the hands of the NKVD "specialists" in Kharkov prison, almost passively detailing his weeks-long confinement in a upright-coffin-sized kishka cell standing in his own bodily wastes, his racking and the burning of his hands with hot tar, the systematic beatings and subtler tortures. Rawicz can even praise the kishka of Lublyanka prison where he is incarcerated during his show trial, because "...this kishka was clean, and the periods I was forced to spend in it were much shorter."
Sentenced to serve in a labor camp in Siberia, Rawicz must first get there from Moscow. This trip takes him 3000 miles by train across wintry Russia, still barefoot in the buttonless cotton blouse and beltless pants which he wore in the Kharkov. He reports the death of numerous prisoners in his cattle-car, whose bodies were dumped alongside the track, after being stripped of their prison garb. "Father Stalin only loaned the poor bastard his clothes for the duration of his stay in the USSR..." When the caravan reached the southern tip of Lake Baikal, the men were chained by twos to the end of a dozen trucks, and marched to their camp. Although they were issued warmer clothes and rubber boots, 10 to 15 percent of the prisoners died on that final march.
At Camp 303, Rawicz decides to escape. He is aided in this plan by the bored wife of the Soviet commandant, who asks only that he wait until her husband is away and the camp is nominally under the command of the political officer. Rawicz chooses six other prisoners—one of whom, they discover to their surprise, is an American mining engineer who was arrested after a year's work on the Moscow subway tunnels. "Mr. Smith" is strangely fluent in Russian, and may in fact be a spy, but the other five men are Polish, Latvian and Lithuanian prisoners. They collect supplies of dried bread, steal deer, sable and rabbit skins from the guards, and manage to create warmer clothing, shoes and other tools for survival before leaving the camp in mid-April, 1941.
Article comments
1 - Maglase
I read this book years ago, and remembered the story of the yeti they saw toward the end. I think the post-war Mt. Everest expeditions located Mr. Rawizc to find out what he knew, and that's how the book came to be written.
I had completely forgotten about the torture at the beginning.
2 - alienboy
This is the kind of book that should be taught in schools...
3 - DrPat
Since the release of the book, there has been an ongoing debate about whether the story is a factual account or a fable. Very little of it is based on the yeti accounts, Maglase, but is instead focused on Rawicz' insistence that the escapees spent 12 days without any water or food, continuing to hike across the Gobi and make decent progress during that time.
I think myself that this unbelieveable datum is one part exaggeration, one part real accomplishment, and seven parts remembering dehydration hallucinations as real experiences.
4 - Eric Berlin
Alien - I agree, this is real history. I read Night, by Eli Wiesel (in high school, college?) and it knocked me on my ass. I'll never ever forget the scenes of walking barefoot in the snow, concentration camp prisoners dropping one by one to starvation and exhaustion and death.
Great job as always, DrPat.
5 - Eric Berlin
This book review has been selected for Advance.net. You’ll be able to find this and other Blog Critics reviews at such places at Cleveland.com’s Book Reviews column.
6 - Tony Duffy
I was in my final year at secondary modern school in 1961, when I began reading this book in the school library. It gripped me immediately after reading just a few pages.
Each afternoon I would eat lunch quickly in order to return to the library so that I could continue with my reading of it, I just did'nt want to put it down.
Of all the stuff I had read throughout my schooling years, The Long Walk captured my imagination for many years after I had left school. And the one thing about my school, I have to say in its favour, was that it encouraged its students to read. I read everything that was put in front of me.
In 1965, I sat the entrance exam for my local police force and part of the exam required me to write an essay based on a book I had read.
Needless to say, this was my choice. I could'nt commit my thoughts to paper quickly enough.
Later when I had finished the exam, a police inspector who had read my paper commented that he had enjoyed reading the subject of my choice and could'nt wait to read the book himself.
Less than a week later I received a letter telling me that I had been successful and subsequently I spent the next thirty years of my life as a police officer.
I'll never know whether or not that inspector passed me because I did well in all of the test or whether it was because he liked my essay on the The Long Walk.
Amazingly I have'nt read it since leaving school but what a story. The question of whether or not I believed it, for me was never an issue.
Why it has never attracted the attention of Hollywood producers since it first appeared on our bookshelves is to me a total mystery. Particularly when one considers the amount of garbage that millions of dollars are wasted on by the industry every year, producing movies that nobody wants to watch.
The Long Walk is a story of mans cruelty and inhumanity to his own kind,the harshness and sometimes the beauty of mother nature, but above all it is about the determination of the human spirit to survive.
God bless the author for surviving his incredible ordeal, for if he had'nt, I might never have had such an enjoyable career.
7 - Simon
Please find any relative information about Slavomir Rawicz and the Long Walk at the above mentioned website,
regards,
Simon A.Rawicz
8 - DrPat
The URL Simon Rawicz intended to provide is to this UK site.
The site includes artwork created by Slavomir Rawicz, many pieces of which are strangely evocative of water.
9 - tutu
tututuuttutututu
10 - Hope
alienboy..
Eric Berlin..
Be glad. This book is taught in my school. We also have a banned books club. :)
the world is not always so stupid/unaware/un-open as it may seem.
11 - Captain Bob
Like Tony Duffy's entry, I too read this book in the library of my junior high, it was one of the most important reads of my life, set an imprint for Uncle Joe and the Sov system, always wanted to try to meet Slavomir, truly an extraordinary man and story. Hoping to be in Nepal shortly, if anyone is aware of local connections to Slavomir and the book, please do share.
12 - pb0000
I wish this book was true, but it's not. The evidence is pretty overwhelming now, do a search on it. There are records showing Rawicz was released from prison without escaping. None of his companions have ever come forward or been verified. This story has parts that are pretty unbelievably - week without water, bigfoot, etc. To be honest, I'm mad that I invested time in this book on false pretenses - it's not true!
13 - S.Rawicz
As a member of the Rawicz family, a grandson, I would like to add that first and foremost that my Grandfather never wrote the book as a source of financial gain, he, as well as my family have always struggled through life with the basic's that we all have worked hard for, and that applies more so to my grandfather than any of us, who from his arrival in the UK to when he died he worked his heart out and suffered more than I dare say the majority on here could ever imagine, let alone cope with or endure.
From the minute he arrived he worked not for any other reason than to support himself, and then his family, and at times after the book was written also struggled to survive, yet he always managed to do the best he could, not only for himself, but also for all who he met.
He wrote the book as advice to help him rid himself of his demons, not as people would have believe for money, or prestige. He wasn't comfortable with anything other than being lucky enough to have had a second chance at having a new family. None of you know much about him or his life prior to the book or indeed afterwards, and still you feel you know the man when you don't.
Firstly, if any of you people had met my Grandparents, and I read that some of you have on here, then you'll see for yourself that there aren't too many saying he was a glory seeking millionaire, because he wasn't, if you had met him then you would indeed at least speak of them with the respect he deserves, for nothing other than the good they brought into this world, not just for myself and for my family, but for the hundreds of people who's lives they affected also, not just through their work helping whatever they could, but because its how they were as people.
Whatever you choose to believe, rightly or wrongly, no one, including our own family has the full facts, no one. But neither does anyone else who comes in with a two pennies worth of a bit of a story either about him or some article they read. The same could be said about each and every one of our own families too though.
Who here has a thorough and detailed history of their own families lives, and can prove exactly where and when their grandparents were and what they were doing without error, oversight, exaggeration or lack of specifics, especially having been through some, (whatever) form of mental or physical stress?
No one, that who, not a single one of us...Fact.
I've lived abroad in numerous countries now and I'm only in my thirties and yet I couldn't even tell you where and what I was at any one point, let alone give you a time scale on places I’d been or things I’d done.
The full history, especially in a period of time that we are talking about, where the world was going through was it is impossible. So we are told things, we hear things, we read things and then depending upon how we feel, we either get personal and attack firstly a great man, a family man and someone who isn't here to defend himself, and secondly someone who has no reason to prove anything to anyone without having met him first. Or we look into the facts and try and establish the truth.
I've read through some of the posts on here and can only feel pity for all the people who can only attack a person without knowing anything about him, without ever once seeing his scars, mental and physical, knowing of his pain and suffering, prior to the book, prior to most of us even being born, and without ever once knowing what his character is and was always was like.
I have no reason to defend him other than the fact that he was who he was to me, I gain no financial merit or outcome by coming on here and having to wade through savage attacks on his character, I try neither to verify or deny his story as like you, we know as much as we do and that is as incomplete as it is with all of the things we read. Yes there are things that are uncertain, but there are also facts that do support him in what he wrote, but one person's say so is no better than anyone else’s.
I hear stories about this and that, and even to ourselves there is so much to ask, and to ask is all there is for us all. I'd love nothing more than to be able to prove or deny theories or allegations surrounding my Granddad and what he wrote, just to know that people will leave the memory of my granddad alone and treat him the respect he deserves.
If you never knew him and have only been introduced to him through the book and by posts such as this then you honestly have to look more into him as a person and to what he did as a human being, something that can't be said for many on here who have no idea of who he was and what he was like.
The people who crawl out of the woodwork with their attacks can do so and only show themselves for what they truly are, and I’m pleased that they do as it gives everyone a true perception on the type of person they really are, something that you must be proud of, and furthermore something that everyone see's.
There are valid reasons for and against aspects of his book, and I urge everyone to feel free to discuss it, and like ourselves we seek the truth, I'd like to know where and what my family were like as I'm a British citizen however I was partly raised by the people you mention and would love to know more of my heritage, however as I hear from so many who just seek to tear a good man apart then you have no right to even comment on his intentions or character until proof rightly or wrongly has been found.
Had you endured half of what he did would you know the times, dates and areas you'd been, NO, its impossible.
We live in an age where the world is in our garden, but it wasn't then, my Granddad had neither the time, the skills nor the desire to have had to make up what he wrote about.
He was a craftsman, a gardener, a dad, a granddad and a husband, but also a soldier in a war, and like so many at the time a victim of the Old Russian regime. Caught up in the wrong place at the wrong time, he lost more than you and I will ever know, irrespective of the book.
Since a few people have, have and always will try and discredit the book, and that is their right. Many don't know the facts behind any of his life at all, yet everyone seems to know what and where he was and what he was doing. Rather incredible considering people who never knew or met him are coming out with so-called details of his life, before, during and after the war.
We all have an opinion on something, great, use it, and don’t abuse it.
I was privileged to know my Granddad for 33 years before he died and I neither cared for the book one way or another, I was just pleased to know my Granddad, and to have him in my life like so many friends and family alike. The book was just there, something that we read to draw courage from, something to make us feel better when life was bad, something that for me personally was hard to understand as it was a world detached from the world we now live in now, especially the world I was brought up in, yet I liked hearing about the war, the history of a world removed.
Just because I can't find something though doesn't mean it isn't there, or doesn't exist, and likewise something that I read or hear about doesn't make it any more realistic or possible, something that our generation should appreciate more so than older generations.
By way of example, I was brought up in an era where in the news the possibility that the moon could have Martians existed, Pluto was a Planet, there was no water on Mars and that the Yeti couldn't exist, yet here I am knowing that Pluto is a rock, there are no little green men, and that there actually is water on Mars, also this week scientists claim to have discovered hair from a creature in the foothills of China that have turned out to be from a creature that we haven't classified yet, so what does that tell us...
Also, I'm sure that back in the mid 40'd as all hell was breaking loose in Europe and Asia with war, famine and disease everywhere, survival being hard enough even if you had half a chance, the world was in complete chaos, and while people including my Granddad having lost all their families struggled on, all these people had was nothing else better than to sit around dreaming up stories of the Yeti and escaping from a Prison. I'm sure he thought he'd inflict some serious wounds upon himself to authenticate his story, hell lets say he even murdered his own family to not have them deny his story, what else would you like to add...Cause that’s what it seems like your doing.
Everybody all of a sudden is an expert, it happens in anything in this day and age, sport, media, entertainment, and that’s all this and so may things are these days, poor entertainment, it preoccupies your mind for a period of time to just make you feel like your doing something constructive.
He was who he was, he went through an experience that no one can rightly or wrongly deny or prove, but he did. With the arguments available, and with the way of the world we may never know, but I know what I know, as do all who knew him.
A liar always gets caught out as after a while they can't remember what they've told to who, the truth is something that comes out in your subconscious, something that when you tell others it never differs, and something that may vary slightly from the exact detail as our minds become looser with age and experience, however the essence always remains the same.
That for one is something consistent with my Granddad however you feel, all through the years, he didn't have to read it every night to re learn it, he didn't have to explain variations as there was none, and he didn't have to apologize over the years when he gave speeches to the many organizations he supported when he couldn't remember any of it, as it just never happened.
Pretty good going for over 40 years don't you think?
As a young boy he used to tell us about life back at home in Poland, he was often at times distraught, emotional, in pain, but never lost or unaware of his life and what he'd done, it didn't fluctuate, he didn't need to hide anything, however sometimes depending upon the subject matter he may have struggled with his feelings and emotions whilst he tried to tell you, but it was always what he said it was.
We as a family would always like to know more of our family, regardless of whether or not it’s true or not, as our family is no different than yours, learning about them is what we also are trying to do.
It makes no difference to the grand scheme of things either way, so don't think I care about the money as I don't get any, and don't think we care of anything else such as films or anything like that as to most of us the pain of losing our Dad or Granddad is far greater than any financial gain could ever be.
I can't speak for all my family but the thought of having people acting the way they have been and doing to the memory of my Granddad what they have been doing sickens me more than anything else.
My Granddad was a good, honest and kind man and should be remembered for that first and foremost.
Regards,
S.Rawicz
14 - dan
are the naysayers denying the 1st half of the story? if only that is true, it is still an amazing story of courage.
15 - Knackered Cow
I am currently looking to buy this book,after starting to read it at a friends, and was appalled at the standard of comments on this thread. The important fact in any book, be it fiction or fact is the emotion it invokes in the reader ! Does this book written by a man who suffered at the hands of a corrupt and brutal regime, give one an insight into an era and way of life alien to us in the 21rst Centuary Britain? Does it broaden our understanding of the past? If it does, if it gets us thinking, appreciating and condeming brutality, then it matters not whether the tale is totally true, or totally false, it does the job intended, to open minds of its readers, and in that we should respect the author's work as it is, and not seek to diminish the message or the man. From what I have read of it so far, it does what was intended, to open a mind, in that I thank the author and value his words.
16 - nabin
Is there any movies or documentaries base on this book, if its there please help me to find it !!