The Long Walk Book Summary

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Recommended: Effect of concentration of camps

The Long Walk, a true story, tells of a group of prisoner escapees’ trek from their Siberian labor camp, through the Siberian forests, the Gobi desert, and the Himalayas, to India. The Soviets take Slavomir Rowicz, a bilingual Polish Cavalry Officer, and interrogate him. Although they find no concrete evidence, he is sentenced to 25 years of manual labor by the corrupt Soviet Supreme Court. After the prisoners are taken on a deadly walk to their camp, they are nearly starved. To improve his rations, Rowicz volunteers to help fix and work the Ushakovs’ radio. Ushakova, the wife of the leader of the gulag, feels sorry for Slavomir and gives him plans for an escape. Rowicz knows he cant leave alone, so he asks Mr. Smith, Sigmund Makowski, Anton Paluchowicz, Eugene Zaro, Anastazi Kolemenos, and …show more content…

Out of the prison, they run and keep running until they find Kristina Polanska, a 17-year-old girl who was running from a vile foreman who controlled the farm she worked at. With her, the group crosses the Trans-Siberian railway into Mongolia after coming across a hospitable man. Helped by kind Mongols, they make their way into the Gobi Desert, unprepared and unknowing of its challenges. Kristina, due to a mix of heatstroke, exhaustion, dehydration, and hunger, begins to weaken, falling down on her swollen legs. Not long after, she dies and is buried. Sigmund Makowski, the 37-year-old ex-Polish captain, shows the same symptoms of swollen legs and uncontrollable collapsing and repeats the process. When they believe all hope is lost, they find mud, harboring snakes. After drinking the water from the mud, and eating cooked snake meat, they again think that it is possible to survive the Gobi. Finding dogs ands sheep, they know an owner is near. With the old owner, they eat, and set off. Now, they enter friendly

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