The Long Walk
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Average rating3
This book is a real good read as they say. I found it on the sad side...even brings a tear to your eye.
This book should be relegated to the fiction section of the library.
There is much in Rawicz's story that makes no sense.
For example, Rawicz admitted that he had come out of the USSR with the Poles who were released after the Soviet-Polish pact, and went to Palestine where he joined the British forces. But he says that this happened after he went back to the USSR after exiting through India with his two companions. This makes no sense whatsoever. Nobody in his right mind would return to Soviet territory after escaping a Soviet camp.
Another aspect that I find problematic is his companion on the trek, Mr. Smith, an American. I should think that Mr. Smith would have become famous post war given the Cold War of that era. Nor have I ever read any account by an American who was in Russia at the time who knew of an American engineer who worked on the Moscow subway. Several thousand Americans moved to the USSR in the 30's, and several of them wrote books about their lives there.
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This is a great read, just a shame that it is not actually a true story!
For those unaware of the story, Rawicz claims that he was one of seven men who escaped from a Soviet prison camp in Siberia and travelled by foot over 4000 miles (6500km) through Siberia, Mongolia's Gobi Desert and Tibetan Himalaya into India, a journey taking eleven months. Records released by Russia show he was released as part of an amnesty and transported to the Caspian Sea and then a refugee centre in Iran. To muddy the waters more, in 2009 a Polish war veteran claims that the story is true, but it was he and not Rawicz who was the escapee.
Much has been called into question, and no records support the story have been discovered.
In terms of the story, it is a gripping story of superhuman endurance and great luck! There are so many occurrences that happen at very strategic points of their journey - usually just as they are at their utmost limits, some chance circumstance saves them - a couple of examples - they discover a stag with its antlers tangled in the roots of a tree, when they have been without food for a number of days; numerous times they come across people in remote locations - shepherds often, who generously provide food and shelter to the group.
The book starts with Rawicz in a holding prison in Moscow and a trial whereby he is found guilty of being a Polish spy and sentenced to 25 years of imprisonment. The first third of the book is the journey in poor conditions with thousands of other men on a train from Moscow to Irkutsk, then a 400 mile (650km) journey by foot north, towards the Arctic Circle to the prison camp, where the men are to labour.
Rawicz is relatively comfortable, having had some skills and been able to join a work group making skis for the Russian army. In this job he works indoors near a furnace and is given a far larger food allowance than general labourers. He is also able to fix and operate a radio for the commandant and his wife, and receives unlikely assistance from her in preparing for his escape.
The selection of the escape group was nerve wracking, the obvious risk being if someone turned them down they could also turn informer. Eventually the group is settled, and is made up on three Polish soldiers, a Lithuanian, a Latvian, and of all people, an American who had been living in Moscow working on the metro construction.
The story describes their preparations, then launches straight into their (fairly straight forward) escape and their superhuman journey as noted above.
Assessed as a work of fiction it is probably 3.5 stars - too many happy coincidences in my view.
Assessed if it were factual and a true story is would be amazing, and 5 stars.
As I grapple with the disbelief, and trust of the author being broken by, at the very least placing himself falsely in the story, and at worst concocting the entire story, I will settle at three stars.
