Jrobertus's review
The Long Walk: The True Story of a Trek to Freedom by Slavomir Rawicz
The Long Walk, by Slavomir Rawicz, purports to be the true story of an heroic flight to freedom. He claims to have been a Polish officer grabbed by the Russians in 1939, imprisoned and marched to "camp 303" in Siberia. From there he and six companions escape, with the help of the commandants wife. THey begin a year long trek south, past Lake Baikal, through Mongolia, across the Gobi, over Tibet and to India and freedom. Hurray! What a triumph of the human spirit. The book had the taint of improbability all along,especially the part about observing a Yeti couple! Subsequent investigation shows the book is a fraud. None of the events can be substantiated. He claims to have convalesced in a British military hospital in India for a month, but there is no such record. He claims to have trained with the Polish contingent of the RAF, but there is no record of that. Russian records show no camp 303; they show Rawicz was a prisoner of war, but was pardoned in 1942 and sent...more
