Book: The Long Walk-The True Story of a Trek to Freedom
Basic Information : Synopsis : Characters : Expectations : Thoughts : Evaluation : Book Group : New Words : Book References : Good Quotes : Table of Contents : References
Basic Information:
Author: Slavomir Rawicz
Edition: ePub on Libby from the Los Angeles Public Library
Publisher: Lyons Press
ISBN: 1592289444 (ISBN13: 9781592289448)
Start Date: October 7, 2022
Read Date: November 21, 2022
256 pages
Genre: History, Biography, Outdoor, Osher, World War II
Language Warning: None
Rated Overall: 3½ out of 5
History: 3 out of 5
Synopsis:
A Polish Cavalry officer escapes the Nazi invasion only to be arrested by the Russians. He is interrogated and sentenced to 25 years in Siberia. After three months in the prison camp, he and six other prisoners escape and trudge south across Siberia. Along the way, they pick up a girl who is also escaping her work assignment. They cross over into Mongolia, cross the Gobi. Then onto Tibet and the Himalayas. After losing the girl and three of the original escapes, they make it into the British sanctuary of India. There the author records and joins the Polish Free Army.
Cast of Characters:
- Slavomir Rawicz-the author
- Mischa-probable defense counsel
- The Bull-the chief interrogator
- Grechinen-partner on the chain gang. Big and strong.
- Colonel Ushakov-camp commandant of Camp303.
- Politruk-camp propaganda officer. Not his real name
- Igor-the commandant’s messenger
- Anastazi Kolemenos-Also worked on skis. One of the biggest men Rawicz had ever seen.
- Ushakova-Commandant’s wife. Loyal to him. Was born to an affluent family.
- Sigmund Makowski-another escape. Aged 37, ex-captain of the Polish frontier forces. Died.
- Anton Paluchowicz-Polish cavalry officer, fellow escapee. He had no tooth, so had to have all food soggy. DIed in the Himalyas due to a fall.
- Eugene Zaro-Yugoslavian, Comedian, fellow escapee
- Zacharius Marchinkovas-Lithuanian architect, fellow escape. Died in his sleep.
- Mr Smith-an American, engineer-worked on building the Moscow Metro, a fellow escape
- Kristina Polanska-a prisoner whom they met around Lake Baikal. Polish. Joined the group
Recommendation: Osher book club book
When: September 2022
Date Became Aware of Book: 2020
How come do I want to read this book: Book club read
What do I think I will get out of it? Entertaining story.
Thoughts:
This book was written originally in 1956.
 |
| Route to Prison |
The Long Walk from Prison to India
My mileage and days estimate. Some notes here. First, when you measure how the crow flies, it is abut 2,750 miles from the Prison Camp 303 to A northern spot in India. The mileage which I plotted out on Google earth of a potential route is 3,250 miles. So it is possible I am under-counting the miles and the advertised 4,000 mile journey is pretty close. Assuming that they traveled every day for the whole year (April 1941 to April 1942), that would be just under 11 miles a day. That would seem like a reasonable walk. Here is a kmz file of the maps from above.
Chapter |
Miles |
Days |
Miles/Day |
Notes |
X Seven Cross the Lena River |
266 |
9? |
29+ |
Thought they were making about 30 miles a day |
XI Baikal and a Fugitive Girl |
426 |
14-21 |
21-30 |
Rawicz said it was a blur. |
XII Kristina Joins the Party XIII Across the Trans-Siberian Railway |
343 |
12? |
28.5 |
Running out of food. When they reached Mongolia, it was mid-June. |
XIV Eight Enter Mongolia |
258 |
8 |
32 |
|
XV Life Among the Friendly Mongols |
355 |
42-56 |
8 |
Said they were trying to do 20-30 miles a day. Running out of food and water |
XVI The Gobi Desert: Hunger, Drought and Death XVII Snake Meat and Mud XVIII The Last of the Gobi |
331 |
2 months? |
5 |
Going without food or water. Food gave out five days. Came to an Oasis. Another 12 day stretch without water. Two die |
XIX Six Enter Tibet |
625 |
45 |
14 |
Probably the route overlaps with the previous chapters. |
XX Five By-Pass Lhasa |
427 |
35 |
12 |
|
XXI Himalayan Foothills XXII Strange Creatures |
220 |
98 |
2-3 |
|
It sounds like they went as long as nine days without water-maybe more. But medical sites say that three days is about as long as a person can go. How did they do it? The BBC gives a good description about what happens as you dehydrate. They said that the record for going without water is 18 days. But that was in a jail cell. One study in Archiv Fur Kriminologie (NIH) concluded that you can’t survive more than 8 to 21 daysTrusted Source without food and water. People on their deathbed who are using very little energy may live only a few days or a few weeks without food and water-from HealthLine.
Wikipedia notes that according to Soviet records, they have a different accounting of Rawicz’ arrest. It also notes that he was sent to Iran in 1942.
Foreword Ronald Downing
Ghost author??? He describes Rawicz and how he met him. What strikes me is his description of Rawicz as a man who has made a virtue out of reticence. Interesting. He had seen Rawicz to set a story about some strange Himalayan beasts he had seen. He came out of the experience helping Rawicz write this book.
Introduction to the Polish Edition
He states the reason for writing this book: he wants to expose Stalinist Russia for the barbarian country it is. He explains how Russia has rampaged Poland. How there has not been any country as maltreated as Poland. He was hesitant to tell this story as he still has loved ones in Poland whom he fears to expose to Russian mistreatment. Still I had to tell my story as a warning to the living, and as a moral judgment for the greater good.
I Kharkov and the Lubyanka
The opening scene is that Rawicz is in a Russian prison.
Pinisk-Rwick’s hometown. It is now in Belarus. (Note: BBC found some records concerning Rawicz in Belarus.) His family was celebrating his successful escape from the invading Germans on November 19, 1939. The Russian police arrested him there. He was imprisoned in Minsk and Kharkov. Kharkov’s purpose was to degrade a man into a beast. Even a mock trial was a new experience.
He was interrogated by Mischa. Several times. Each time was the same. They had nothing against him. The only black mark against him was that he was a middle or upper class Polish Cavalry.
Describes prison and interrogation conditions.
Then moved to Lubyanka. Rawicz decided it was death to give in to signing a confession he did not do. He wanted to live.
II Trial and Sentence
His trial. As the questioning really got under way I found myself grudgingly admiring the resolute singleness of purpose of the official Russian mind.
Every couple of hours, his guards were replaced. He was left standing. Also the officials who were holding the hearing were replaced. But the proceedings kept going on. Asked about his wife-a woman who he just married and then Rawicz was hustled off to the German front.
The next day, yet another group of officials were there to continue the hearings. After Mischa slapped him hard four times, he thought, Finally I talked because I knew I must go on fighting them to the end.
Rawicz thought, why are they spending all of this time on him? On a foregone conclusion?
The fourth day of the hearing. He was sentenced to 25 years in a prison camp.
Note: Wikipedia notes there is an alternative account which has Rawicz being imprisoned for killing an NKVD officer.
III From Prison to Cattle Truck
Changes in prison suddenly got better-such as a hot shower. His first in more than a year. One security mantra was:
Step to the Right
Step to the Left-
Attempt to Escape.
The idea was that the only escape was death.
By this time it was November 1940. He was leaving Lubyanka. He was loaded into a cattle car of a train. They were crowded into a car going to Siberia. They were locked in and could only stand. No place to relieve themselves, except around them. After 24 hours, they were allowed out but only to get the cars cleaned with a little bit to eat. There was a rotation of men going outside. There was a gap in the side which served as an observation of what the country was like which they were passing through.
The train was going by several unknown places, but then eventually got on the Trans-Siberian Railroad. When they got on a siding, another prison train stopped right beside them-it was Eastern European woman. The train went ballistic. The irony was that afterwards the Russian train commandant said that the trouble with them is that they have no culture.
The one thing which saved people was there were a few prisoners with a sense of humor. But about 20% of the prisoners did die on the trip. The prisoners got to know each other more by location and characteristics than by name.
IV Three Thousand Miles by Train
As the train trip extended into several weeks, the question came up: Would I have fared better as a prisoner-of-war of the Nazis?
A Jew was trying to escape the Russians, going through German lines. He was sentenced to ten years in a prison camp. Rawicz’ comments is: Trying to escape from your liberators can be regarded as very anti-social behavior.
The train trip gives Rawicz time to reminisce about his brief time in the Polish Cavalry. There seems to be some sort of conflict here between WIkipedia and Rawicz’ account. I think it is because of the myth that the cavalry attacked tanks. But Rawicz just says they attack German positions-it sounds like the infantry. He talks about the insanity which happens during a cavalry charge: A cavalry charge induces a form of madness. Rawicz fell back to Warsaw to make a stand there. On his way there, he was leading a recognizense team. So it was that I came to see probably the last cavalry charge in modern warfare.
After three weeks, they hit the end of the line: Irkutsk, near the southern tip of the great Baikal Lake. By now, the temperature was sub-zero. It was the middle of December. They needed to march five miles with a gale force wind. They spent three days in a potato field, just trying to survive. They were then given new clothes. Then trucks came to carry them to the camp.
In Irkutsk, the average temperature in December is a high of 10F and low of -2F.
V Chain Gang
Vehicles came to take them to their prison camp. But that was a misnomer. Instead of riding, they had to walk. Not only walk, but they were put two abreast, chained to a one inch chain behind a truck. They had to walk twelve hours this way in the cold. When a person died, the whole procession of 5,000 prisoners was stopped and the body was removed and buried in the snow. Rawicz estimates that 10-15% of the prisoners died. They were heading north, along Lake Baikal, towards Yakutsk.
When they stopped, it was only in the shelter of some wood. Rawicz was grateful memories of the general efficiency of the lumbering field kitchen. The rations were bread and a form of hot coffee. To the prisoners only food had value. It was beyond price.
Not much in the way of friendship was established, just misery. Rawicz’ partner on the chain gang was Grechinen. He was sentenced to ten years of hard labor. Talking in the wrong places, he warned me, could get a man into a lot of unexpected trouble
When Christmas Eve came, it was noted by the signing of Holy Night and Jesus’s Lullaby.
Even though there were first-ad men in the company, they were never there to help. When the guards were told that somebody was in trouble, if they were old, they were not helped. The Russians among them were almost always helped.
VI End of the Journey
It is now the end of January 1941-they had been marching for 40 days or more. They crossed both the Vitim and the Lena Rivers. A blizzard came along which even stopped the trucks. No sleep-sleep meant death due to hyperthermia. Blizzard went on for 24 hours. What came to the rescue? Reindeer brought by the Ostyaks-native people of Siberia. They had been commandeered by the Red Army to save them. Rawicz talked with one guy who gave him some good advice. To the Ostyaks, prisoners brought to Siberia are called The Unfortunates. Rawicz’s friend said that Since a long time ago, before me and my father and his father before him, we placed outside our dwellings at night food for the wandering Unfortunates. He also noted that Always men who are young and strong and hate slavery have tried to escape," said the Ostyak. "Perhaps you will try to escape, I think.” This puts the thought of escape into Rawicz’ mind. Then after 8 or 9 days with the Ostyaks, they came to Camp Number 303, on the north side of the Lena River. Rawicz thinks this is about 200-300 miles north of Yakutsk.
VII Life in Camp 303
Description of their camp. Buildings for guards and staff, but none for the prisoners which came. There were already 1,000 Finns at the camp who had built their housing. They were to build their own barracks. It took them two weeks to build their barracks.
Rawicz and another prisoner visited one of the propaganda lectures. It was good for laughs. In contrast, a Catholic priest asked Rawicz’ barracks if they would not mind him holding a short service. There were no objections. Many felt moved to pray on bended knees. The priest’s name was Gorycz.
The Polish prisoners would sing a little traditional hymn of praise, “When the Morning Light Appears.”
There was not much to do besides work, eat-what little there was, and lay in your bunk to think. Rawicz thoughts were about the people around him: the men about me, the young ones like me who were resilient and quick to recover, the forty-year-olds who surprisingly (to me, then) moved slowly but with great reserves of courage and strength, and the over-fifties who fought to stay young, to work, to live, the men who had lived leisured lives and now, marvellously, displayed the guts to face a cruel new life very bravely. They should have been telling tales to their devoted grandchildren, these oldsters. Rawicz’ conclusion was that There is a courage which flourishes in the worst kind of adversity and it is unspectacular.
And then there were the thoughts of 25 years in this place. He would then think of the little Ostyak and his talk of the Unfortunates. Did any of them ever get out of Siberia? No man could ever hope to fight his way out alone against the crushing hazards of this country with its immense distances. Where, having planned an escape, could one find resolute men to make the attempt?
He asked a couple of his acquaintances about going with him if he escaped. They both said no because the prospects of surviving looked like nil.
The Commandant offered a special assignment: to make skis for extra food. Rawicz accepted. They ended up turning out 160 new pairs of skis a day. Many did not like the people making the skis. Some, including Rawicz, saved some of their extra rations. Working in the ski shop returned Rawicz to full health. The concern was the skis would be helping the Russians who were maltreating them. Rawicz’ thought any work they did was helping the Russian system. It is odd to reflect that the prime advocates of a classless society had this early succeeded in making two classes of workers and in marking the difference so clearly with substantial rewards to one class.
VIII The Wife of the Commissar
Rawicz is 25 and it is now early 1941. Rawicz volunteers to fix the commandant’s radio, when needed. Rawicz does not know how to fix radios but has the same model as the commandant’s. So he figures he can figure it out.
The commandant when asked about where he got the radio, he said that he got it in Poland and it seemed like he may have had some misfortune there. Ushakov owed his appointment to Siberia to some indiscretion during the Polish campaign.
When asked if he thought Russia should be involved in another war since the last one in 1914, Rawicz pointed out that Russia had been involved in a war on Finland and Poland. Ushakov said those were not wars, but liberation. Interesting. Is this how Russia feels about their invasion of Ukraine this year?
He gets to know the commandant’s wife, Ushakova. They would talk while he fixed the radio. She asks about his thoughts on escape, but he does not say. Later when he was called in again, he admits to thoughts of escape, but does not see a way to do it. She says that escape must be an idea close to your heart and it may do you good to tell me what you think. They talked about escape in the abstract. He realized that she put roadblocks to most routes of escape, except for the one they just came up. Ushakova proved to have a sharp mind. Rawicz was not sure if escape was just a mind exercise with her or something she thought he would actually do. But then she gives detailed instructions about preparations. Her one condition is that her husband must be away.
Met both Sigmund Makowski and Anastazi Kolemenos, both who would escape with him.
IX Plans for Escape
By now, it was March. Rawicz started gathering a few people to do his escape with. He ended up with seven people. There were some who wanted no part in it. They all moved into the same hut. They began preparations for the escape. Ushakova made one vital contribution-an axehead. Not only in materials, but in expertise: with a bent nail and a piece of flintstone. The dry gubka, a supply of which we all carried stuffed into our jacket pockets, readily took the spark from the flint and could be blown into a red smoulder. We all became experts in its use. Ushakova also gave each a provision bag.
In Irkutsk, the average temperature in April is a high of 50F and low of 27F.
By April 6, 1941 they were ready for their escape. Easter was April 13th that year-I wonder if this is Eastern/Russian Orthodox calendar.
A good snow storm came to cover their tracks. The night of the escape, they attended a meeting held by the Politkuk. At midnight, they were off
X Seven Cross the Lena River
They make their escape at midnight. Going under wire, across a moat, and up the side of a wooden barrier. Then over the final wire fence. Then ran for the forest in the distance. They went at a good clip until 11am the next day.
They traveled at night for four or five days. Snow was loose two to three feet deep. They were traveling towards the Lena River. He said they were making 30 miles a day. I find this a bit hard to believe in snow that deep.
They made the Lena after nine days, waiting until daybreak to cross it. Rawicz caught fish by breaking the ice. The next objective was Lake Baikal. The aim was the northern tip of the lake, then down the east side. The boots they had were worn out. They wore moccasins which they had made. They traveled south by the location of the sun and moss on the trees. Note: moss on the trees, at least in California is not a very reliable sign of where north is.
XI Baikal and a Fugitive Girl
Rawicz talks about how events and countryside became a blur.
They discover a deer which had gotten itself caught. They killed and ate it. They could not carry all the meat, so they stayed and camped there and ate. The preparation of the skin took some time. After that they walked and were able to find a cabin in disrepair,so they stayed there. In the morning, Zano heard a violin. It turned out that a great, black Siberian bear, reared up on his hind legs to his full and impressive height was playing with a snapped tree. They could not move the tree.
Mid-May came with a short Siberian Spring. Better to be outside of towns. They did not want to meet anybody else, so when they came to a town, they circled around it. At times there were minor outbursts of irritation and temper, almost always at the end of a particularly trying day's march and almost always concerned with the allocation of camp duties before settling down for the night. But they were short-lived. Happily, among the seven there was no clash of personality between any two men.
They were getting close to Lake Baikal as they could smell water. I know that you can get a sense you are close to water. I wonder how that worked out to smell the water. They came out on the northwest side of the lake, close to Chichevka, which is now Severobaykalsk. They swing back around the northing, crossing a cold river.
They come across a woman. She was scared, but when she saw that the group meant no harm, she was good.
XII Kristina Joins the Party
The group sits back and is fascinated with Kristina. Smith more observes her than is fascinated. The question which needed to be faced: would they take the girl with her, if she wanted to go? Her parents had been killed by the Communists when the Nazi’s invaded Poland. While trying to escape the Russians she was captured and sentenced to work in Siberia. On the Siberian farm, the Russian women made fun of her. But it was the foreman who was trying to rape her is what set her to running. She decided that she would go with them.
But that also meant that their resources would be divided eight ways, not seven. Each man probably held some of their own bread back. To hide away bread was a prisoner reflex, a symptom of captivity. A prisoner holding one crust of bread felt that he still had a hold on life, as a man in civilized surroundings will carry round with him a lucky coin to insure that he will never be penniless.
Smith and Kristina developed a father-daughter relationship. She became the de facto nurse.
Hunger started to affect everyone.
XIII Across the Trans-Siberian Railway
They were starting to run out of food. They had gone two days without food when they found a horse. But when the farmer came along, they decided not to kill the horse. The farmer gave them some of his bread and meat. Kristina was not doing as well as the men. Rawicz’ take was that There is nothing the matter with her that a day’s rest won’t cure. Don’t forget she is a woman. All women become unwell. Have you forgotten.
When they came close to a town, they found a pig and took it. With the luck of desperate men we made it.
They cross the Trans-Siberian Railroad-this was an area of unease since here they would be visible and could be caught. They were nearing Mongolia.
XIV Eight Enter Mongolia
They crossed into Mongolia (Buryat Mongolian Autonomous Republic of the Eastern Siberian Region of the U.S.S.R.) with a bounty of potatoes raided from a close field. It was satisfying after all they went through. This was the second week of June. There was celebration. But Smith was cautious about how far the Russian influence extended. So they hurried on.
Rawicz estimates that they have twice as far as they have already come. This is pretty close, but a slight underestimation. As the crow flies, they have gone, just under 900 miles. They have a little over 1900 miles more to go, over harder terrain.
They did not know where they were, only an approximation. Rawicz thinks they headed into the Kentei Shan mountains. They went west and south of Ulan Bator, Mongolia.
Rawicz was the de facto expert on wild plants edibility.
They came out of the mountains after eight days. What greeted them was blistering heat. They met a caravan which gave them some food. The group was to find Mongolians, friendly, trustworthy and generous. They no longer felt they were going to be recaptured. They still tried to make 20-30 miles a day. They ate what came to them
XV Life Among the Friendly Mongols
While the Mongolian people were friendly, the group would also earn their food as well as accepting charity. In one instance described, they observed wheat being sifted. They figured out how to do it better and their reward was a meal. Another time they helped to catch fish.
They continued to try to make 20-30 miles in a day. Some days they needed to stop and make repairs or just rest their feet. They encountered a locust swarm which took hours to pass over them. To relate time and distance has been the greatest of my difficulties in recording the story of this bid for freedom. To me this is a critical statement. It is hard enough making 20 miles on a good surface, well fed and with the required water supplies. Rawicz notes that they were going 20-30 miles on empty stomachs and little or no water. believe our progress through inhabited Outer Mongolia to the wastes of Inner Mongolia occupied us from six to eight weeks.This would mean a distance between 840 to 1680 miles. So I think there are either more rest days or they went slower. As the crow flies it is about 540 miles. So I would guess that 800+ miles would be a good number.
They are coming to the edge of the Gobi. They do not know it, but they are at the last water stop for a long time. They meet a caravan where they share a meal with them. The Mongols tried to serve in age order-eldest first-the Mongols did not speak Russian. This cause some joking between Kristina and Rawicz. Mongols watched the laughing exchanges between us and I am sure they would have loved to know what we talked about. …. We walked away and when I looked back from fifty yards away they were squatting down again, their backs towards us. In that short distance we had passed out of their lives and they out of ours.
XVI The Gobi Desert: Hunger, Drought and Death
They were without water for two days and were feeling the effects of it. Rawicz was driving them on rather than returning to where there was water. This really gets into the question, what was it worth dying for that was driving him on? Why didn’t they travel in the evening or at night rather than the daytime with its heat? On this part, they did not feel like they could navigate at night.
On the fifth day, their supply of food gave out. People were stumbling on the sixth day. These were the signs of growing, strength-sapping weakness, but it would have been fatal to have acknowledged them for what they were. They were the probing fingers of death and we were not ready to die yet.
On the seventh day, they spotted an oasis. They came across water and drank and got themselves rejuvenated, at least in part. In a dump, they found a coil of wire.
The debate was should they continue on or wait until the next caravan. Rawicz insisted that they continue on as there was no guarantee on when the next caravan would come. the light of what was to come, I hope I may be forgiven for my insistence.
Five days without food or water. Kristina fell unconscious. But after awhile, she got up and going again. Kolemenos started carrying Kristina. But there was a limit to how far he could carry her in his weakened state. I can never in my life see anything so magnificent as the blond-bearded giant Kolemenos carrying Kristina.
Kristina was dead. They buried her. So we said goodbye to her and went our empty way. This was towards the end of day six without food or water
XVII Snake Meat and Mud
The group could only think about Kristina. That is until Sigmund Makowski also showed the same signs as Kristina. He died on the tenth day without food or water. There was no spasm, no tremor, no outward sign to show that life had departed the body. Like Kristina, he had no words for us at the end. The dossier for Sigmund Makowski, aged 37, ex-captain of the Polish frontier forces, Korpus Ochrony Pogranicza, was closed. Somewhere in Poland he had a wife.
He lost track of the days. When a person stumbled, they made sure he got up quickly. In the shadow of death we grew closer together than ever before. I suppose that when you see death and are jointly in struggle with it, most other things are deemed unimportant.
They were now on the 12th day. Rawicz felt that if they did not find water within a day, they would all die. It was almost too much trouble to erect our flimsy canopy, but we did it because it was by now one of the habits of survival. Interesting term: habits of survival. I wonder what my habit would be?
Towards the end of the day, they came across a damp, but dry creek bed. Smith figured out how to get water out. The amount of water we obtained in this way was infinitesimal compared with our raging, thirteen-day-old thirst, but it was something and it gave us hope. They followed the creek bed and find puddles of water.
For food, they decided to try snakes which seemed to be somewhat abundant. They were able to catch a couple. Smith makes a statement: I think snakes are our only chance. There’s hardly anything a starving man can’t eat. I wonder if they had thoughts of eating the corpses of each other like the Donner Party did?
As they were resting the question about Kristina and Makowski’s deaths came up. Why should death have overtaken them and left the rest of us still with the strength to carry on? This is the question of a survivor.
After such a long time without food or water, they got a stomach ache.
XVIII The Last of the Gobi
Surviving on snakes. We looked up and saw not twenty feet above a pair of magnificent, long-necked eagles, their plumage looking black against the sun.
They were in another long stretch of days without water. At least they had snakes to eat. He thinks it was 7 to 8 days after the mud creek when they saw the mountains about 50 miles away. Then it was two more days when they started a climb. Then we went up and out of the Gobi. But that did not mean they had come to water. Now they had to climb up hills. And then they found a very small spring, but water still. So that would be around ten days without water again.
Water became more abundant-not more than a day passed without it, but it was still a snake diet. After three more weeks, they came across a shepherd. They were fed.
XIX Six Enter Tibet
By now it is October 1941. They have been traveling for seven months. He notes, it would take three months to get to the Himalyans. This area of travel is an area in China. They always had a fire at night. The tradition of hospitality to travellers was an innate and wonderful part of the life of these people; their generosity was open-handed and without thought of reward.
This is a key thing in my mind: As always, we wondered just where we were.
Interesting that he could see a smoke ten miles away from some fire places in a village. From our fire lookout at Delilah, about half of our territory is obscured due to the topography. On a clear day, which I assume in their area, it would be, we could see into Wonder Valley. But it would probably be more than a campfire for us to see. We definitely do not see chimney smoke along that road.
However far it is, they went to the village where they were greeted in a friendly manner. A villager spoke Russian. He was from Circassia. Their host was concerned about meeting Chinese soldiers. They might not be friendly to Russians. He gives them instructions on how to reach Lasha. Also not to be caught unsheltered or without fire at night. As far as meeting other Tibeatans, the host said If you bow to a Tibetan and he bows back, no other introduction is needed. You are accepted as a friend. That night, they slept under a roof for the first time since their escape. He gives them instructions-look in the distance for paths, not the easy one at your feet. Marchinkovas noted: These people make me feel very humble. They do a lot to wipe out bitter memories of other people who have lost their respect for humanity.”
XX Five By-Pass Lhasa
It is now November. While when they came across Tibeateans, they were fed well, there was many times they were going four to five days without food. The meals we were so generously given were massive but we lacked fresh green-stuff. The result was that we continued to be ravaged by scurvy.
There was a discussion, should they go through Lasha or go around it. The concern was that they might not be welcomed as they were in the country.
Going through the mountains, they would come across areas they needed to use mountaineering skills. This is where the wire they came across at the oasis came in handy.
They went through several villages. They finally met a European. He told us he was a missionary, a nonconformist, who had come here with a handful of Europeans of the same persuasion. He had been travelling in China and Tibet for nearly fifty years. The European did not like the group. Only the Tibetans were enjoying the exchanges–and they did not understand a word.
Marchinkovas is dead. He died in his sleep. Zacharius Marchinkovas, aged 28 or 29, who might have been a successful architect in his native Lithuania if the Russians had not come and taken him away, had given up the struggle.
They then came across a school, close to Lhasa. They met the school master and stayed with a friend of his. knocking–nobody seems to knock on doors in Tibet. It was now December 23, 1941.
XXI Himalayan Foothills
Towards the end of January when they crossed the Brahmaputra River. Shortly afterwards, they came across some abandoned huts where they slept the night. Then they came to the last village before the Humalayians. The person whom they stayed with resupplied them. Also provided resources for them, such as wool to help insulate their feet.
The stillness of the mountains gave way to their personal doubts. Often at night I had these bouts of despair and doubt. How foolish were they?
By taking one meal a day, their food supply lasted two weeks. Back to mountaineering ways.
At the beginning of March, in the middle of nowhere, they heard a dog barking. The dog belonged to an old shepherd who lived in a spacious cave with his sheep. The shepherd pointed out a good way for them to go.
XXII Strange Creatures
It is now near the end of March 1942. He estimated that have gone 4,000 miles. He fears the heights of the Himalayians, particularly having to sleep there-it may be a sleep they do not wake up from. But they were near their sanctuary-India. To them, India represented freedom, civilization, rest and ease of mind.One shining, incalculable asset remained—the tight, warm friendship of men together in misfortune. While we remained together hope could not be quenched.
They now tackle the mountains. The beginning of the third day we were over the top, only to find ourselves confronted with another peak. It was the stuff of which nightmares are made.
Four or five days of no food again. Now Rawicz’ knife was lost. They were at high altitude and were feeling the effects of it. They needed to bivouac up high. But they could not sleep-death would come. The next day they found a shepherd’s cave, unused, but stocked. SO they made use of it and its contents. In this cave, for the only time since we left Siberia, we helped ourselves to another man’s belongings.
They see a couple of black specks. Two points struck me immediately. They were enormous and they walked on their hind legs. The picture is clear in my mind, fixed there indelibly by a solid two hours of observation. We just could not believe what we saw at first, so we stayed to watch. Somebody talked about dropping down to their level to get a close-up view. They could not identify this creature, Eventually the party decided to go around them. I have read of scientific expeditions to discover the Abominable Snowman of the Himalayas.
By now, it is April.
Going down a slope, Paluchowicz had vanished. He died of a fall.
Eight days without food and losing strength. But they are in India now, looking to reach people. They meet soldiers.
XXIII Four Reach India
The realization that these four had reached safety was immense. We shall be able to live again. Was the reaction of Smith. I[Rawicz] thought a little about that. It sounded a wonderful thing to say. All that misery, all that sorrow, the hardship of a whole year afoot, so that we might live again.
Rawicz felt he needed a smoke rather than food. To handle so ordinary a civilized commodity as a box of matches gave me a warm thrill.
They were deloused and given food. Recovery was starting. This was the first time ever, each had really seen each other-they had met in prison. The comical thing that had ever happened to us. I had never thought of what might lie beneath the matted hair, and neither, I suppose, had they. It was like the midnight revelation from some fantastically prolonged masked ball.
When they got to a British Army base, they saw a doctor and realized how sick they were.
Here it was that we temporarily parted from Smith. He said he was being taken away to see the American authorities. It would seem like Smith was getting special treatment. They were then sent to Calcutta.
It took four weeks to recover. Once recovered, Rawicz wanted to rejoin the Polish Free Army. He was sent to the Middle East. The four agreed to meet after the war-but never did. And as he left Smith, I felt suddenly bereft of friends, bereft of everything, as desolate and lonely as a man could be.
Afterword to the 1997 Edition
I lost my home in eastern Poland through the duping of Roosevelt and Churchill at Yalta, where they, in effect, signed away all of the Eastern Bloc countries to Russia, thus forcing these countries to follow the dictates of their Russian invaders. This gets to the message he wants to convey: Poland has been an occupied country. He has lost everything. But he rebuilt himself. When people he knew returned to Poland, they were shot under the rule of the USSR.
He is grateful to England for taking him in, even though he retained his being Polish. He was still haunted by the nightmare he lived. This book became an avenue of therapy.
The message he wanted to get across is that freedom is like oxygen. He hopes that people will know that when lost, freedom is difficult to regain. He notes that I am not the only one [who yearns to escape repression and have freedom].
Interesting-he does not say that he went back to Poland after the Soviet bloc dissolved. I wonder what he would make of Russia trying to take over Ukraine?
Evaluation:
The Long Walk is a fantastic story about seven men, and later one woman, escaping a Siberian prison camp at the end of Winter. The book starts with why the author was sentenced to 25 years in this camp-essentially for escaping the Nazis. The escape takes us through Siberia, over the border into Mongolia and the Gobi desert, into Tibet and over the Himalayas into a place of safety in British India.
Rawicz tells his story well. It is amazing that he and three of his companions made this long trip, let alone remembered various details, such as the kindness of strangers in Mongolia and Tibet. But there are also some questionable aspects to the story. Such as there is an American in the group called Smith. Who was he? Also Rawicz has the group going long stretches, even close to two weeks, without food or water, going across the Gobi during the Summer time. And there is being in the Himalayas and spotting beasts which are eight feet tall-maybe Yeti’s? Also just from the amount of time they spent in the snow and sun, I was wondering where the frostbite and extreme sunburn were? (He does talk about cracked/chapped lips.)
I am not sure what to make of this book. The descriptions are good, but the book as a work of non-fiction seems so implausible. And then you have the BBC debunking both the arrest and the walk. I think there are adventure stories, because that is what you are left with after you see a strong possibility it did not happen.
Notes from my book group:
Rawicz is telling this story to warn about how Stalinist Russia operates. Do you think he succeeds in giving us that warning? Are there any parallels with the way Russia is today?
When Rawicz was interrogated, he refused to bow to falsehood. Why do you think this was important to him? What would happen to him if he confessed to something which he did not do? Would it have made him less of a person?
He states that the goal of his Russian interrogators was to make a prisoner a beast. Why would this be important to the Russian system? How would you prevent yourself from being degraded?
Humor was an essential element for survival. First on the train to Siberia, then from Zano on the journey to India. How did humor become part of their survival kit? Why was humor needed when they were in such a serious situation? What kind of humor would have been detrimental to their well-being?
Rawicz asks himself the question, Would I have fared better as a prisoner-of-war of the Nazis [rather than the Russians]? How would you have chosen? On what basis?
In the prison camp, there was a request for prisoners to work on making skis. Some of the prisoners objected because they felt it would be furthering the Russian system. How did Rawicz feel about this? What would you have done and why? At what price can your ascent to further a cause you oppose be bought at?
When asked if he thought Russia should be involved in another war since the last one in 1914, Rawicz pointed out that Russia had been involved in a war on Finland and Poland. Ushakov said those were not wars, but liberation. Do you think this is an outlook which the Russians have today?
Why do you think Ushakova, the commandant’s wife, helped Rawicz?
The group made team decisions with Smith being the arbitrator. How effective do you feel this arrangement was? What part did Rawicz play? Do you think any of the people had enough knowledge or wisdom to be the leader of the group? Four people died on the walk. Do you think decisions would have been different if they knew of these possibilities?
There were places crossing the Gobi where they could have stopped with water. Why didn’t they wait there? Do you think they should have? What risks were there if they waited? What part did this play in the deaths which followed? Do you think there would have been less deaths?
We also have read Daniel James Brown’s recounting of the disastrous Donner Party in The Indifferent Stars Above. The Donner Party resorted to cannibalism. Why didn’t Rawicz’ party resort to cannibalism after members of its party died. Smith makes a statement that There’s hardly anything a starving man can’t eat. In this statement he was referring to eating black snakes. Do you think he had cannibalism in his mind as well? What would you eat to survive?
Rawicz writes about habits of survival. What were their habits that would allow them to survive? Why do you think a habit can lead to survival? Do you have habits which you fall back on to survive in an emergency?
Was Smith a spy? Why do you think this?
There is a considerable amount of doubt about the veracity of this account. How do you judge the trueness of an account? If you think Rawicz did not portray this story accurately or lied, why do you think he did it?
One of my issues with the account is the mileages done with little or no water or food. Do you know of accounts where there have been similar resources unavailable and still the people were able to do an extended exertion?
In our OSHER group, we read Benedict’s The Personal Librarian, a fictional biography of Belle Greene. When you compare the two stories of Greene and Rawicz, which seems to be more factual? More representative of the events?
How do you want your life to change because you read this book?
Many of these questions are either from or adapted from LitLovers.
Why the title of The Long Walk?
Does this story work as a biography?
Which person was the most convincing as a person?
Which person did you identify with?
Which one did you dislike?
Every story has a world view. Were you able to identify this story’s world view? What was it? How did it affect the story?
In what context was religion talked about in this book?
Was there anybody you would consider religious?
Why do you think the author wrote this book?
What would you ask the author if you had a chance?
What “takeaways” did you have from this book?
What central ideas does the author present?
Are they personal, sociological, global, political, economic, spiritual, medical, or scientific
What implications for you, our nation or the world do these ideas have?
Are these idea’s controversial?
To whom and why?
Are there solutions which the author presents?
Do they seem workable? Practicable?
How would you implement them?
Describe the culture talked about in the book.
How is the culture described in this book different than where we live?
What economic or political situations are described?
Does the author examine economics and politics, family traditions, the arts, religious beliefs, language or food?
Talk about specific passages that struck you as significant—or interesting, profound, amusing, illuminating, disturbing, sad...?
What was memorable?
New Words:
- Asperity: harshness of tone or manner.
- Ersatz: made or used as a substitute, typically an inferior one, for something else
- Politruk: a political commissar or political office
- Athwartships: nautical from one side to the other of a vessel at right angles to the keel.
- Bullock: another term for steer
- Circassian: an indigenous Northwest Caucasian ethnic group and nation native to the historical country-region of Circassia in the North Caucasus
- Piquancy: a pleasantly sharp and appetizing flavor.
- Accoutred: clothe or equip in something noticeable or impressive.
- Hessian: principally drawn from the German state of Hesse-Cassel, although soldiers from other German states also saw action in America.
- Hessian bandage: burlap in the United States and Canada
- Samoyeds: a breed of medium-sized herding dogs with thick, white, double-layer coats.
- Demob: demobilize
- Iron ration: an emergency ration of preserved meat, cheese, biscuit, tea, sugar and salt carried by all British soldiers in the field for use in the event of their being cut off from regular food supplies.
Good Quotes:
- First Line: It was about nine o’clock one bleak November day that the key rattled in the heavy lock of my cell in the Lubyanka Prison and the two broad-shouldered guards marched purposefully in.
- Last Line: I am not the only one.
- Trying to escape from your liberators can be regarded as very anti-social behavior. Chp IV Three Thousand Miles by Train
- Talking in the wrong places… could get a man into a lot of unexpected trouble. Chp V Chain Gang
- There is a courage which flourishes in the worst kind of adversity and it is unspectacular. Chp VII Life in Camp 303
- freedom is like oxygen. Chp Afterword to the 1997 Edition
- when lost, freedom is difficult to regain. Chp Afterword to the 1997 Edition
- Foreword Ronald Downing vii
- Introduction to the Polish Edition ix
- I Kharkov and the Lubyanka 1
- II Trial and Sentence 12
- III From Prison to Cattle Truck 23seven men who make their way to India. It describes their hardship and their loss. But also the
- IV Three Thousand Miles by Train 37
- V Chain Gang 47
- VI End of the Journey 58
- VII Life in Camp 303 67
- VIII The Wife of the Commissar 81
- IX Plans for Escape 93
- X Seven Cross the Lena River 105
- XI Baikal and a Fugitive Girl 116
- XII Kristina Joins the Party 128
- XIII Across the Trans-Siberian Railway 139
- XIV Eight Enter Mongolia 152
- XV Life Among the Friendly Mongols 165
- XVI The Gobi Desert: Hunger, Drought and Death 177
- XVII Snake Meat and Mud 191
- XVIII The Last of the Gobi 203
- XIX Six Enter Tibet 215
- XX Five By-Pass Lhasa 228
- XXI Himalayan Foothills 241
- XXII Strange Creatures 253
- XXIII Four Reach India 264
- Afterword to the 1997 Edition 274
References:
- Wikipedia-Author
- Amazon-Book
- Amazon-Author
- Barnes and Noble
- GoodReads-Book
- GoodReads-Author
- Elliot’s Blog
- YouTube
- BBC-How The Long Walk became The Way Back-December 4, 2010
- BBC-The Long Walk-Radio broadcast from December 5, 2010
- BBC-Walking the talk?from October 30, 2006
- Outside-Three Poles Retraced the Long Walk
