** spoiler alert ** This is a first hand account of the most brutal and inhuman conditions I've ever read suffered by men. It shines light on the complete loss of dignity and respect for human life in Stalinist Russia. The kind of endurance and fortitude of these Gulag escapees in face of mind-boggling harsh environmental conditions seems superhuman.

The entire book covers a 20 month period, starting at the point in which Slav, a wealthy polish Cavalry man fighting the Germans is picked up by the Soviets and force interrogated for over a month in isolation, starvation, and torture -- made to stand in a dungeon with his own urine and feces for days. After a forced confession, sentenced to 25 years hard labor and sent by cattle car 3000 miles into Sibera... standing for a month squeezed against other men, unable to move in what amounted to a standing latrine, with small pieces of to sustain a casualty rate of about 10%. Then another month long trek by foot through 1000 miles of harsh Siberian country through the winter holidays, chained to bitter cold iron shackles to trucks the led the path with inadequate clothing, losing another 10-15% of the weaker, until finally making it to the refuge of a Siberian timber gulag work camp.

With some luck able to dry and save some spare bread and recruit a motley crew of 6 other prisoners to escape and make an 18 month journey by foot south through the Siberian cold, Mongolia, the Gobi desert, the Himalayas, and finally India.

The story of survival highlights man's will to survive -- and how starkly different the Soviets and their southern neighbors respect for life was. A few tips for survivalists could be found in its pages also.