The 4,000-Mile Walk to Freedom

In 1939, a young Polish officer named Slavomir Rawicz was sentenced to 25 years of hard labor by the Soviet Union for spying. Three years later, he recruited a few other prisoners to escape in what can only be called an epic journey to freedom:

In March 1942 six Indian soldiers on patrol in the Himalayas were startled to see a small group of men wearing animal skins stumble down a mountain trail toward them. The soldiers were even more amazed when the four emaciated strangers-who a few moments before had scarcely been able to walk-began to laugh and dance, hugging each other and singing.

The four had every reason to rejoice: they had just completed a 4,000-mile trek on foot from a Soviet labor camp in Siberia.

Link

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by MrGhaz.

Update 3/4/10 by Alex - Slavomir Rawicz's story became an international bestseller book titled The Long Walk: The True Story of a Trek to Freedom. Subsequently, there was controversy over the veracity of the story, which include possible sightings of Yetis in the Himalayas.

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Was going to buy this but then read a lot of reviews on Amazon that said this story was fabricated. Seems pretty impossible to journey that far, especially through a desert, with no water for days on end. Too bad. I would have bought if there was no doubt of its validity.
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I read this book 15 years ago, and the story is incredible, considering all they endured. To me, there is/was no point in fabricating a story like this- even the part with the yetis. People have done really amazing feats, and have had experiences that are well beyond what we can today accept, in this technologically connected world. My father lived through WW 2 as a Greek guerrilla, and the storied I have heard from hime & his brothers match the hardships this author went through.
After reading the part about the yeti's and the way it was written, it was just written as a passing note in the story as a whole, not a focused blown out of proportion hey-can-you-believe-what-I-saw!?!?! thing. Animals appear & disappear regularly on this planet- why not another type of humanoid? It may be smart enough to know its' survival depends upon homo sapien interaction?
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