The Long Walk: The True Story of a Trek to Freedom

This is a fantastic story of a group of men and one young woman who attempted the impossible trek of over a 1000 miles to freedom. I HAD to read this every night before bed (my usual time to get to read). The cry and need for freedom is so strong in mankind, they will do anything and endure starvation in order to achieve it. All of these people lived. They struggled and some died. But as a group, they persevered. I highly recommend this novel! I intend to pass it on to my children, with the understanding, it comes back to my library to read again in a few years.

The story in a nutshell: A Polish Army officer is captured by the Soviets after they have joined Hitler in dismembering his country. Rawicz (the officer) is tortured in the Soviet prison system and sent to the Gulags. Faced with misery in Siberia and probable death, he and a band of others escape and undertake a two thousand-mile long journey from the snows of Siberia through Mongolia, the Gobi Desert, and across the Himalayas toward British India and freedom.This is a great story. The author describes the mindless torture under the Soviet system in a manner that should persuade any reader of the evil of totalitarianism. The description of his train journey, hundred-mile winter hike through a Siberian winter to his gulag and life in the camp is fascinating. His will to survive amidst degradation, the elements and overwhelming odds are a testament to the human thirst for freedom and liberty. As other reviewers have stated, there are some parts of the book that invite skepticism. His befriending by the camp commandant's wife seems as improbable as it is crucial to his ability to escape. The escapees journey across the Gobi Desert where his group went for many days without water beyond what I understood a person could tolerate. Without any climbing tools, his party went across the Himalayas to India -- a feat that seems fantastic. Also his brief description of spotting what could only be described as the elusive Yetti in the Himalayas stretches credibility (unless it does actually exist).That being said, this story is exhilarating and I found it believable and enthralling. It is a wonderful adventure story and describes the limits of what the human spirit and mind can endure to survive in freedom. This book has been around for almost fifty years and was given wide play when first introduced. I'm going to assume the lack of anything debunking this widely told tale (or, anything that I could find) argues for the author's veracity -- certainly that frame of mind allows one to enjoy a stirring story.

This work's secondary title, "The True Story of a Trek to Freedom," is but a small clue to what lies between the covers. The chronicle of Slavomir Rawicz, a Polish cavalry officer who escaped a Soviet Siberian forced labor camp in 1941 and completed an incredible yearlong journey on foot through China, the Gobi Desert and into India is also a testament to human survival and a comforting reminder that human decency still remains in our too-often cruel world. The book's greatest strength lies in Rawicz's ability to mentally detach himself from his experience and recount in great detail and with notable insight events ranging from the horror of his last cavalry charge against the Germans and subsequent Soviet captivity to picturesque descriptions of Mongol social customs and snowy Himalayan peaks. It is a unique blend of high drama and intrigue, anthropological commentary and how-to wilderness survival paced by a steady, no-nonsense narrative. The overwhelming irony of this cavalryman's odyssey was that despite the presence of a raging global war fast becoming notorious for mass ethnic extermination, he received nothing but kindness and generosity from all of the native peoples he encountered on his trek. It is this alone that makes "The Long Walk" a "must read."