Book info

• Title The Long Walk
• Author Sławomir Rawicz
• Year 1956
• Genre Memoir

Slavomir Rawicz was a young Polish cavalry officer. On 19 November 1939 he was arrested by the Russians and after brutal interrogation he was sentenced to twenty-five years in a gulag. After a three-month journey in the dead of winter to Siberia, life in a Soviet labour camp meant enduring hunger, extreme cold, untreated wounds and illnesses and facing the daily risk of arbitrary execution. Realising that to remain meant almost certain death, Rawicz, along with six companions, escaped. In June 1941, they crossed the trans-Siberian railway and headed south, climbing into Tibet and freedom in British India nine months later, in March 1942, having travelled over four thousand miles on foot through some of the harshest regions in the world, including the Gobi Desert, Tibet and the Himalayas.

Thoughts

This is a pretty tough read - from the start our protagonist is in prison, being tortured and abused. He goes to prison, escapes from prison and starts the titular walk, across deserts and mountains and the most inhospitable land you can imagine.

It’s somewhat unbelievable in the re-telling, situations I cannot even imagine being in, and yet the strength of these characters to keep pushing on, to survive, to rejoin the real world is incredible.

A well-told memoir, with characters that could do with being slightly rounder but are of necessity withdrawn and stoic. Thankfully it comes to a safe ending, although whether happy or not is left unsaid.

Rating: 4 / 5