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The Polish Long Walk
In 1956 Slavomir Rawicz a Pole living in the East Midlands wrote a book about an alleged journey on foot through wartime Soviet Russia starting in Siberia and ending in India. This facts surrounding such an amazing feat have recently been challenged however, thousands of Poles did undertake a perilous journey from Soviet labour camps to the Middle East.

In September 1939 Poland was invaded twice – once by the Nazis and then a few days later by Stalin’s Soviet army from the East. Eastern Poland was effectively cleansed and its peoples deported to a life of hard labour in Russia. However, when Hitler invaded Russia in June 1941 their situation changed. Released from the labour camps, over 100,000 half-starved men women and children made the journey south eventually crossing into Persia where those who were fit enough joined up with the Allied armies.