Rawicz and his wife both died in 2004, but Willis details a screenwriter's 2002 interview with Rawicz, bolstered by a summary of her own correspondence with the couple. In Defense of Slavomir Rawicz Few stories have ever gripped me like that of The Long Walk by Slavomir Rawicz. The movie is based on a book, The Long Walk, by Slavomir Rawicz, an as-told-to account published in England in 1956. Background Information. The Long Walk is a book that was penned in 1956 by a man named Slavomir Rawicz.His book is a highly readable one. After Rawicz died in 2006, a BBC radio documentary uncovered proof that he was a fake – military records showed that he was serving in Persia (now Iran) at the time of the escape. This real-life saga describes Rawicz's capture by the Russians during the 1939 invasion of Poland, and follows through to imprisonment, conveyance to a gulag camp in … What was the number in … Sławomir Rawicz (Polish pronunciation: [swaˈvɔmir ˈravit͡ʂ]; 1 September 1915 – 5 April 2004) was a Polish Army lieutenant who was imprisoned by the NKVD after the German-Soviet invasion of Poland.In a ghost-written book called The Long Walk, he claimed that in 1941 he and six others had escaped from a Siberian Gulag camp and begun a long journey south on foot (about 6,500 km or 4,000 mi). But only a madman could entertain any serious hopes of a break on this wintry trek to the North.” (Slavomir Rawicz, The Long Walk, 64) Over the next year they traveled on foot through the frozen tundra of Siberia, across the scorching Gobi desert and finally over the mountains of the Himalaya to India and freedom. The afterword of the 1997 was his new official post cold-war version of events and he was generally unwilling to elaborate let alone answer the questions left over from the 1950s. "The Long Walk" by Slavomir Rawicz = Hoax Like many of you I read the book The Long Walk and thought it was very interesting. Slavomir Rawicz. (unsigned) No. “All men who are young and strong and do not want to die must think of escape. to al those who live and die for freedom, and for al those who for many reasons could not speak for themselves. It is told in adventurous, captivating style, and tells of his dicey and daring escape – with various comrades – from a brutal Siberian prisoner of war camp as the Second World War raged, specifically in 1942. SLAVOMIR RAWICZ c/o Constable & Co. Ltd. [address given] Did Rawicz ever explain his re-entry into the USSR? Ihad to tel my story as a warning to the living, and as a moraljudgment for the greater good.-SLAVOMIR RAWICZ ENGLAND, 1993 Some die at difficult moments along the journey, but four of them survive. There were, unfortunately, many parts of the book that were clearly untrue, for example the Yeti sighting, his claim that his party walked well over a week across the Gobi Desert without water, etc. In 1941, Slavomir Rawicz escaped from a Soviet Union gulag (prison camp) with 6 other inmates. Step to the right, step to the left… the Russians knew it too. "I hope The Long Walk will remain as a memorial to all those who live and die for freedom, and for all those who for many reasons could not speak for themselves." 25, skilled, strong, calvary leader in the Polish army, survived the long walk and joined the Polish army with his allies, died at the age of 88.