The Long March

Discover the experiences of men who recorded day-by-day, the terrible Long March of 1945 when the Germans evacuated allied prisoners-of-war away from the advancing Soviet army. If this were fiction it would be an exciting story; but it’s not fiction, it’s real, and perhaps it is about what happened to people in your own family. There is tragedy, there is courage, there is despair. Hunger and sickness are always present. There is terrible cruelty but there is also true comradeship and the kindness of strangers. There are many surprises. You will see how men can sometimes be reduced to their most basic instincts in the struggle to survive. There was not just one March route of course - columns of prisoners-of-war were straggling all over Poland, Czechoslovakia and Germany from January until May, being forced along by their guards, and neither prisoners nor guards knew where they were supposed to be going or where they would end up. The experiences of different groups of men varied enormously. Throughout there is the overwhelming yearning for liberation and to be reunited with loved ones.