In Defense of Slavomir Rawicz

Few stories have ever gripped me like that of The Long Walk by Slavomir Rawicz. 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 Siberia, and his subsequent escape. Along with other men, the group walked all the way to Calcutta, India, a distance of 4,000 miles. What an amazing story! That is, until I did a little digging and learned that many believe Rawicz's story to be a hoax.
 
Oh, how I wanted to believe the story. I am a trusting person. I am convinced that we as humans can accomplish feats far beyond our imagined capacity. Although I doubt that I could execute such an endeavor, Mr. Rawicz's story inspired me to do much better.
 
The book was actually written by a ghost writer, Ronald Downing, a British journalist who was researching the abominable snowman, or Yeti. Someone told him of a Pole living in England who had seen a similar creature while walking through the Himalayas. Upon meeting Slavomir Rawicz, the journalist quickly became fascinated with the story as a whole. The two agreed that it was time for the account to be told.
 
The book is very well written, with an intriguing emphasis on detail. Whether it is being handcuffed to a heavy steel chain during a forced march through Siberia, or the sight of a Pavel Bure silver watch carried by a Mongolian nomad, Rawicz seems to have an amazing memory.
 
While crossing the Gobi Desert, two members of their party die and are buried. To survive, the remaining men catch snakes for food and suck water from a scarce section of mud. At one point, they go thirteen days with no water.—And this is where the skeptics come in.
 
They will point out that it is impossible to survive that long without quenching your thirst. And a sighting of an abominable snowman . . . . nonsense! Furthermore, they will point out that the Soviet Union listed his name as being released in 1942 and sent to Persia. And, where are the remaining four survivors who fled with him? Why haven't they stepped forward and told their story? Why hasn't he kept in contact with them?
 
These are valid concerns. A quick Google search will uncover a small “Long Walk controversy.” Both sides seem to be equally represented. People would like to know: Did Slavomir Rawicz really travel thousands of miles to escape the Soviet Gulag, or is it an epic tale that is well crafted, but a fabricated lie?
 
My first question in rebuttal is obvious: What would Mr. Rawicz have to gain by making up such a story? Some might suggest praise. But it was Ronald Downing who approached Slavomir with the proposal. Even after that he was hesitant because when the book was published (in 1956), the Soviet Union was still enthralled in Communism and he still had family that lived there.
 
Some might discredit him because of the vivid details in the account, claiming that no one could recall such facts accurately. If that charge were being made against me, they would be correct. Although, from my life experience, there are those who can, with accuracy, recall vast details from events that happened seventy years in the past. It is as if the incident happened yesterday. I believe Slavomir Rawicz is one of those people. He accused his ghost writer, Mr. Downing, of embellishing some parts. So, if you combine a vivid memory with a very good writer, you are apt to get a novel with lots of intricate details.
 
Concerning the thirteen days without water, maybe it did, or did not happen. I don't know. Perhaps this was a detail that was blurred with time, and what was “many” days morphed in “13 days.” Or, maybe the account is accurate and these men accomplished a feat which most would consider humanly impossible. I have read many accounts of people who did extraordinary things in extraordinary circumstances. Such a story is easy to dismiss when we are such a soft society. We life a life of luxury and comfort and can't fathom such a hardship, let alone surviving it.
 
The sighting of the abominable snowman, or yeti, might lead some to believe this is a work of fiction. Sightings like this are not unheard of: Big Foot, the Loch Ness Monster and mermaids to name a few. I have a friend who once claimed he saw a herd of mountain goats in the Virgin River Gorge. “Impossible,” I told him. “That's at least 150 miles from their closest habitat!” But he held firmly to his claim and gave an accurate description of the goats.
 
In his book, Slavomir Rawicz describes the experience of seeing the yeti: “They were enormous and walked on their hind legs. . . . Their faces I could not see in detail, but the heads were squarish and the ears must lie close to the skull because there was no projection from the silhouette against the snow. The shoulders sloped sharply down to a powerful chest. The arms were long and the wrists reached the level of the knees. . . . It would have been easy to have seen them waddle off at a distance and dismissed them as bear or big ape of the orangutan species. . . . There was something of both the bear and the ape about their general shape but they could not be mistaken for either. The color was a rusty kind of brown. They appeared to be covered by two distinct kinds of hair—the reddish hair which gave them their characteristic color forming a tight, close fur against the body, mingling with which were long, loose, straight hairs, hanging downwards, which had a slight grayish tinge as the light caught them.”
 
You may choose to believe or not, but just because you may disbelieve doesn't mean the incident didn't happen or that the observer didn't see something that was unexplainable. And, I might add, if Slavomir Rawicz was intent on selling a fabricated story to the world, why would he throw in such an unbelievable encounter with the abominable snowman?
 
According to a BBC report in 2006, Russian documents have come forth “proving” that Rawicz had been freed from the Soviet Gulag Camp in 1942, which would have been during the same time he would have been making The Long Walk. ——I guess the debate is over. The Russians, whom everyone knows wouldn't lie, have produced evidence from their meticulous records, during a time when the masses were being rounded up in cattle cars. —— I don't think so.
 
Another allegation, apparently made soon after the initial book release, was made by a few people familiar with the Himalayas, including a Mount Everest leader, Eric Shipton. He cites inconsistencies, which make it in his eyes a hoax. Again, I will state as I have previously that time or weakness may have blurred some of the details reported by Rawicz. I also can't help but to remember a project I did in High School in which we had to analyze a map and include the general direction of a geological feature. I chose Grand Gulch and used a detailed map that my dad had. I stated that the primary canyon ran southeast to northwest. When I got my corrected paper back, my arrogant teacher (whom lived in another town because the class was broadcast over a television) wrote “unlikely” on my paper because “Grand Gulch ran northeast to southwest.” It turns out we were both right, but because my map focused in on a tighter geographical region, it only showed a portion of the canyon that ran opposite to the rest. —My point in all this is that even though a so-called expert may think he knows all about the Himalayas, no one will know it perfectly, and Slavomir Rawicz's trek may have been different than most others.
 
Lastly, I would like to mention a book written by Linda Willis, entitled Looking For Mr. Smith. Mr. Smith was an American and a member of Rawicz's group. Her research led her to believe that Slavomir Rawicz did not make The Long Walk, but perhaps another person did, and Slavomir just stole his story.
 
Enter into the mix Witold Glinski, a Pole whose story is nearly identical to that of Rawicz, minus a few embellishments. She suggests that Mr. Rawicz found his story among official papers in the Polish Embassy and used it to concoct his own story. Glinski didn't even tell his wife about the escape until 2003, just a year before Rawicz died. I find it possible that Glinski was a member of Rawicz's group, but that Rawicz changed his name to protect him. I also find it ironic that Ms. Willis finds Glinski's account believable and Rawicz's unbelievable, when the two stories are nearly identical, including the trek through the Himalayas.
 
The story of Slavomir Rawicz ends happily. After the trek he moved to England where in 1946 he married his wife, Marjorie, and had five children together. In spite of his ill-health, he was able to find employment, first as a woodworking instructor, then as a cabinet maker. He and his wife also ran a guest house in Castle Donington. After the publication of his book, he was able to buy a house that was big enough for their children and farm animals. Later he worked as a technician at Nottingham College in the arts and ceramics department. He retired from there in 1975 after suffering a heart attack. During his retirement he spent time restoring furniture and looking after their large garden.
 
Slavomir Rawicz passed away peacefully on April 5, 2004 at the age of eighty-eight. ♠ 

Slavomir Rawicz.

The Humble Potato

Many years ago, before a trip to Ireland, I asked a friend who had lived there about the cuisine. “What are some of the authentic foods?” I asked. Without hesitation, and with a smile in his voice, he replied, “The Potato.”
 
He wasn't kidding. After a long bus ride to Galway from Dublin, our first meal on the island was at a quaint gray-bricked building on Market Street called Finnegans. I ordered the Irish Stew, or simply referred to as “stew” by the locals. When my plate arrived, not only did my stew contain chunks of spud, but it came with a side of two boiled red potatoes and and a pile of mashed! This pattern continued throughout our stay on the Emerald Isle.
 
I guess I shouldn't have been surprised. After all, it was Ireland that depended on the tuber so heavily that when the crop failed in the mid-1800's it created a famine that killed over a million people. Leading up to the “Great Hunger” was a period when Irish peasants were forced onto smaller tracts of land to allow room for grazing cattle of the British. The potato became the staple of their diet, growing well in less favorable soil. It is said that roughly 40 percent of the Irish ate no other solid food other than potatoes. When the blight first hit in 1845, it is estimated that over three million Irish were totally dependent on the potato. The result was death by starvation and disease, as well as a mass migration to other countries, including the United States.

The potato, or Solanum tuberosum, originates from the Andes Mountains in South America. The natives grew them on terraced slopes where it wasn't uncommon for each village to have a dozen different varieties. Some of the tubers contained toxic compounds which were neutralized with clay or dirt that was made into a paste and eaten with the potato. Much as we do, the Andean people ate their potatoes roasted, mashed or boiled, but also dried, fermented or frozen.
 
The first known Europeans to come across the potato was a group led by Francisco Pizarro, who landed in Ecuador in 1532 among the Incas. Within a few decades, farmers in the Canary Islands were growing them in great enough quantities to ship to mainland Europe. During the next century, the Solanum tuberosum would find its way around the world as part of the Columbian Exchange.
 
In our modern world, the potato is the fifth most important crop, surpassed in harvest volume only by rice, sugarcane, wheat and maize. According to Charles Mann's book, 1493, “The potato can better sustain life than any other food when eaten as the sole item of diet. It has all essential nutrients except vitamins A and D, which can be supplied by milk.” This is how the Irish, whose meager diet consisted of potatoes and milk, could survive remarkably well.

Patatas a lo pobre from Granada, Spain.

Nowadays you can find tortilla de patata in Spain, borsch in Poland, and massaman curry in Thailand, all using a descendant of the South American potato. In my own culture in the American Southwest, a very revered dish is "dutch-oven 'taters." When the Mormon pioneers moved westward across the plains, they brought cast iron pots which they used to cook their food. That tradition has carried on, and now, no serious meal while camping would be complete without frying up bacon and onions, and baking slices of potato in a dutch oven over coals.
 
About fifteen years ago I visited my friend, Billy, and we were in his back yard admiring his garden. I noticed the wide furrows and plants growing from the banks of earth. “What are these?” I asked, not recognizing the leaves. “They're potato plants,” he responded. “We can dig some up and you can take 'em home.”
 
The idea of growing potatoes in a garden had never occurred to me. The following spring I bought some Red Pontiac potatoes from a catalog and cut each tuber so that each section contained at least one eye. We planted two rows that first year, and I was surprised at how easily and green the plants grew.
 
I have planted potatoes every year since then, occasionally experimenting with different varieties. It has easily become my favorite crop. It grows easily, not only the ones you plant, but also the volunteer plants that germinate from leftover spuds. When harvest time arrives, I love that there is no rush to dig them up before the first frost, but that you can leave them in the ground, protected from the cold. Storage is simple. All I do is keep them in a tote with no lid in our storage room in the basement. They stay good until spring. The quality of my own potatoes exceeds that of what is available in the store, and lasts much longer.
 
And most of all I like to cook with them. I know that potatoes are basic and cheap to buy, but when we have a whole container in the basement, we tend to use them more, and it brings down the price of our groceries. We eat them in soups, stews, or mashed, fried, baked etc.
 
Now it is harvest time again and tomorrow I have to go out with shovel-in-hand to dig up tubers. I will admit that it is a little difficult when you haven't kept up on the weeding to distinguish the potato plants from the pig weed. But I will continue digging down the line, on each side of the furrow until I reach the end. Sometimes I am disappointed when I dig and uncover just a handful of small spuds. But when luck would have it that I dig and lever the shovel and overturn a plethora of fat Red Pontiac, then I feel as if I've just won the jackpot! ♠ 

Dutch-oven potatoes.