Three Polish friends covered over 4,000 miles across Russia, Mongolia, China, Tibet, and finally, India, to raise awareness about what they (and Soviet prison records) call falsifications by Slavomir Rawicz, the author of The Long Walk: A True Story of a Trek to Freedom.
Originally released in 1956, The Long Walk is a survival bestseller about the an escape from a Soviet labor camp, the 4,000 mile journey to freedom, and the limits of what humans can endure (The book was written by a ghostwriter after conversations with Rawicz). In 2009, Witold Gliński, a Polish WWII veteran, publicly claimed that the story was true, but had actually happened to him, not Rawicz.
“Our aim was to show that the real hero of the Great Escape was a Polish man named Witold Gliński,” Tomasz Grzywaczewski told . ” Not Slavomir Rawicz. And to prove that it had happened.”
The men trekked the Himalaya, the Gobi Desert, and Siberia over 11 months. They finished earlier this month.
There is also a movie based on the original story due out in January. Check out the trailer above.
–Will Taylor