Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(143)
4 star:		(25)
3 star:		(16)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(15)

 

 

After having read, Unbroken, about a downed WWII pilot who survived life on a raft for a number of days and then was picked up by the Japanese and sent to a brutal camp, I thought I would read more about life in camps during war. I found this book and read it. I thought it was amazing that he managed to survive in and escape from a camp in Siberia. That he walked for months and months through a desert and mountains only to end up rescued in India. I was a wild account. Perhaps too wild? I don't know, after reading, I looked up more about it and found that most people believe this account to be fictional. There seems to be no way it could have actually occurred. Seen from that perspective, I feel foolish for believing it. However, if you just want to read an amazing book that could maybe have happened, then it really it quite good.

This is a nice edition, great paper quality and including a nice map. Good choice of survival story, even if you've seen the movie.

Odd that Rawicz's Mongolians walk everywhere rather than ride horses, and dress in conical hats (something no one else has observed). Odd that he claims to have gone for 12 days in the Gobi without water - he must have been ready for a beer or two after that. And perhaps he had consumed more than a couple of beers when he met the yetis in the high Himalayas.

It's also odd that Rawicz has refused to authenticate any of his claims and declined to produce records, photographs, witnesses, or the full identity or whereabouts of the other survivors.

I think the bit on the cover, which claims that this is a "true story", may need revising.

For all those who are amazed by this book I have to tell one thing- never take anything for granted. Question everything. You won't eat spoiled food, right? Why would you read a book that is written by a lier? If it was a fiction book, but it is claimed as a true story experienced by the author.
For the beginning the small archive note- Slavomir Rawitz, though he was a prisoner of war, was pardoned and freed in 1942. He joined the Polish devision of a Red Army. He was never in the camp, he was never in Siberia.
Now, why the story is fake? I know Siberia, I know reality, I know desert climate.
1). He says in the book that they were transported in sheep trucks from Moscow to Siberia, where they were put so tight, they were standing without even moving their hands. The journey was for over three weeks. It is physically impossible for a human being to stand for three weeks, their legs would be puffed to death threat. And then he describes how they walked to the camp in Siberian winter after this journey, hardly dressed. Impossible.
2). In the camp (oh, by the way camp 303 never existed in Siberia. Archive note- camp 303 was somewhere not far from Moscow), the author worked making skis. In one day they produced a pair of ready to use skis. Lie. Do you know how much time it is needed for timber to be ready for skis?
3). NO wife of a camp authority would help a prisoner to escape. Only those who DO NOT know the soviet reality can believe in this nonsense.
4) He describes how they made a hole in the ice of The Lena river (in April!) with a piece of log. Ice in Lena river in April is 6 feet deep! Dahhhh!
5). He describes how he fell under the water when ice broke. He got out, squeezed water off the heavy winter clothes, put wet winter clothes back and continued running. Impossible. Impossible to squeeze water out of a coat in winter- and a coat would be solid frozen like a tin. Impossible to run in wet clothes in Siberian winter.
6). He describes blooming Siberian orchards in May, blooming cherry and apricot trees. What a stupid lie for stupid believers. Cherry and apricot trees NEVER EVER can be found in Siberia, especially blooming in MAY. Spring comes in Siberia around June. Apricots grow in hot Middle Asia. Dahhhhhh.
7) Mongolian gave then peanuts. hahahahahaha. They didn't know what peanuts are at that time in Mongolia. There was no imported goodies yet at that time.
8). crossing desert Gobi in summer, without water. In two-three days they would be dehydrated to death. Burnt by the sun.
9) meeting Yeti- oh, well, probably the only truth in the book. LOL.
10) The author never saw again the people with whom he made this journey.... never reunited? Only because there were NO those people. As there WAS NO such a journey.
Bad fiction, for those who would believe any lie.
Never take anything for granted! Question everything!
P.S. If you want to read about soviet concentration camps reality- read a book by Alexander Solzhenitsyn "One day in life of Ivan Denisovich".

I love non-fiction, espeically ones about human survival. I got 1/2 way through this book when I got a funny feeling a lot of it was fabircated. No way in heck can unprepared and malnourished individuals cross the Gobi desert with no supplies. If my memory serves me right they go 5+ days without water.... sure they did! Then they cross the himalayas with no gear, food or climbing experience. The icing on the cake for me is when they spot 2 yetis..... at the point I was sure the book was inaccurate.

Doing some research, I found out that the whole story was fabricated. I can live with some fabrication, but not when the entire book is nothing but a farce. The fact that even after the book was proven to be untrue that it still claims the story is a "true" event bothers me.

My impession is that it is fake. It just doesn't feel true. I've read quite a few books on various prison camps in various wars and this book just doesn't ring true. The polish prisioners speak using british slang. There was no name gathering. No documentation. I don't believe they'd be in any shape to make a 4,000 mile trek from freezing Siberia, over the Himalayas, thru deserts etc.

Slavomir Rawicz also claims to have seen Bigfoot. He describes an encounter with two 8 foot tall creatures somewhere between Bhutan and Sikkim. According to Slavomir, he and his companions watched the outsized beasts for over 2 hours, from a distance of 100 yards.

I just resently finished Ghost Soldiers: Hamptton Sides. Now there's a true story about a forced march to two prison camps and a rescue/escape. I've always known about Bataan's POW death march and 3.5 years imprisonment but this was mt first book.

I am an avid outdoorsman with experience in long distance hiking and backcountry winter travel. I love TRUE survival stories, but this one is not only false but obviously so. It is simply not possible to bushwhack 20-30 miles a day through deep snow with almost no food and no water as recounted in the Northern part of the trek - and to make that distance in actual forward progress with no map.

He also claims to have gone 8 and then 12 days with no water in the Gobi desert in the heat of summer while walking miles and miles each day. This also is impossible as survival without water in these conditions is limited to a very few days at best.

It's also full of all kinds of "little" howlers like the idea that when they got to the Gobi desert between the eight of them they only pot or pan they had was a single mug they'd taken from the prison camp. They hadn't even managed to scavenge a tin can. Right.

I love the American, "Mr. Smith", who doesn't reveal his first name throughout the entire epic. Maybe he was really Agent K. Or was it J.

In the end, it's ever so convienient that he loses track of all of his fellow survivors so "coincidentally" there is no one to corroborate this absurd story.

I've really only scratched the surface.

If you want some incredible survival stories you can believe try "Endurance" - an account of the Shackleton Expedition, Touching The Void by Joe Simpson, or Adrift by Steven Callahan.

=Steve Dunn=

There's no use to discuss the "truth" of this book, as it
has been shown to be complete fiction already over 40 years
ago. The interesting thing is that most people really do not
use their brains when they are reading. So they constantly
tend to mix fact with fiction and vice versa...The evidence
that the whole book is pure fiction is in the book itself and
not so hard to find either!

This book is total fiction. Nothing about the author's
life before he wrote the book or any detail of the journey
has ever been independently confirmed. And a great many
people have tried very hard to do so since the 1950s. Nothing
about his life can be confirmed before he arrived in england
and started telling his story.

Many people have read this book and wanted to believe him. They
have tried to check out the story but most have ended up
totally frustrated by the author's lack of cooperation
if not outright dishonesty. It can't be confirmed that he
was ever a polish officer, that he was in the soviet union,
or that he was ever in India or palestine. "I dont remember"
will work for the details of his trip through China, but
"I dont remember" doesn't work when he says it with regard
to his entire life before the 1950s.

Slavomir Rawicz is likely not even his real name.

This isn't a conclusion that I'm happy to have come to, but
Mr. Rawicz has not ever been able to provide even one tiny
bit of supporting evidence for his account of his life
independent of the actual trip itself.

If you enjoyed Lansing's Endurance then this is almost a sure bet for you. But you should know before you buy, that this story may not be true. When the walkers see the Yetis in the Himalayan mountains, I was disapointed, up until then everything seemed so realistic. If you don't care if it is fact or fiction and just want read great survival story go ahead and buy it.