Slavomir Rawicz – Walked for 4000 miles

(Slavomir Rawicz at a book signing for “The Long Walk”)

Slavomir Rawicz was born in 1915, and joined the Polish army several years before World War 2 began, holding the rank of Lieutenant at its outbreak in 1939. Poland was originally invaded by both German and Soviet troops, and since the attack was so big and happened so fast the Polish army didn’t stand a chance.

Slavomir Rawicz was taken as a prisoner by the NKVD, which is a department of the Interior Ministry of the Soviet Union. He was made to walk alongside thousands of other prisoners to Irkutsk where he would be taken to nearby Gulag camp 303, a forced labour camp where the prisoners were made to build barracks and make skis for the Russian army.

The camp was located about 650km south of the Arctic Circle and was dangerously cold for the workers to be outside all day digging foundations and cutting timber. As for Rawicz, he was assigned to make skis and repair and operation of the camp commandants’ radio.

During a particularly bad blizzard one night in 1941, Rawicz and six others managed to slip through the wire fencing and headed south as fast as they could. The blizzard instantly covered up any tracks which made it impossible for dogs to follow, so if the camp did send any guards after them, the group didn’t see any.

The party was made up of Slavomir Rawicz, 3 Polish soldiers, a Latvian and Lithuanian civilian, and an American known only as Mr Smith. Before they made it out of Siberia they were joined by a young Polish girl, and together the group of 8 headed south trying to make it to the British-controlled part of India.

Making it out of Siberia seemed to be the easy part, moving mostly at night and avoiding any towns and villages, but when they came to the Gobi desert their luck quickly changed. They didn’t have any real supplies with them, only the clothes on their backs and a few vegetables they managed to steal from farms they passed.

During the crossing 2 members of the group died, and upon reaching the other side they realized their only option was to then try and make it across the Himalayas. Crossing the mountains is hard enough with modern-day equipment, but when you have nothing it’s almost impossible.

Another 2 members of the group died while trying to pass this giant mountain range, and in the book later written about the journey the group claimed that they saw 2 large yeti-type creatures up the mountains.

The total journey took just over 11 months and the group walked around 4000 miles in total, with 4 survivors making it into British India in March of 1942. They ran into a Gurkha patrol and were taken to a hospital in Calcutta, after they had recovered enough to leave they all went their separate ways and lost contact. Later on, Slavomir Rawicz rejoined the Polish army and also managed to survive the whole war.

After the war he wrote a book about his adventure called “The Long Walk”, he died in 2004 at the age of 89 at his home in Nottingham, England.