Customer Reviews

As Far as My Feet Will Carry Me: The Extraordinary True Story of One Man's Escape from a Siberian Labour Camp and His 3-Year Trek to Freedom

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Absolutely one of the best books that I have ever read! There were times when my heart was literally racing while reading this book. This is the story of one man's quest against both nature and man to reach his home - by foot, alone, walking west from the Bering Strait, destination: Germany! Our man fights Siberian blizzards, relentless hunger, ravenous wolves, escaped convicts, and even manages to defy the immense, omnipresent dangers of the Soviet police state.

From beginning to end, the story leaps right out of the pages, and you can feel you are right there with Forell (the main character). Forell is a German POW that has been sentenced to 25 years hard labor in a Soviet lead mine at the edge of human existence. Of course, no one lives more than a few years after mining lead - who cares anyway since they are enemies of the Soviet state. After some time Forell and all his comrades slowly but inevitably begin to succumb to lead poisoning. Shaking off the lead-induced apathy, Forell makes his grim resolution to reach Germany or die trying - there will be no surrender. From then on we follow Forell's long, hard, and bitter journey to ultimate freedom. After his labor camp ordeal, his trek across the wilds of Siberia, and his experience with Soviet-style civilization, even his own uncle is completely unable to recognize him.

Truly one of the best adventure stories ever told!!! I never wanted to put the book down!

This story just demands to be read. It is one of tremendous suffering and the triumph of the human spirit. This is the ultimate World War II escape story.One sees the fate of the defeated German Army in a new light. Sent to die in a lead mine, this German Soldier has a remarkable account to share. I highly recommend it to anyone with an interest from this period. You will never forget it.

As for the other half negative reviews, like it being for a young reader, don't pay any attention to that. Obviously those reviews are written by people that can't look or think beyond their own egos nor actually try to imagine what it must have been like, what the permanent affects were after such an altering event, and obvious emotional scars that must have continued on and on... After I finished the book, I re-read the preface and understood why there seemed to be pieces "I" wanted answers to, but understood why they weren't there.

I recommend this book to anyone of all ages. It's absolutely an amazing account of someone accomplishing a journey home with EVERYTHING against him and the beckoning door of death at every turn. How he survived? It's beyond me....

Now, I will hunt for the DVD....if anyone knows where I can find the DVD, please find a way of letting me know. Thanks!

You'll like this if you like adventure and the story of man's triumph over impossible odds - well written, almost unbelieve sometimes but Bauer's story is backed up by historical evidence

I love reading tales of survival and often wonder how I would have reacted under similar circumstances.

Always when I read a book about survival I'm looking for the mental aspect of a hardship and this book really lacked that. It started good with laying a foundation and describing the interactions with other people during the journey but, as the book progressed it seemed that the author hurried the story more and more.
The last chapters were very weak concerning "how" he achieved a resolution to the struggle and then "pow" he was home... end of story.
Also there was very little information as to how material and food was found to survive and because of this I was left with only basic facts of the escape story and could never really put myself in the subjects shoes as he journeyed the 8,000 miles to freedom.

Good story, weak book.

Extraordinary true-life story of a German soldier ("Clemens Forell") who makes a three-year, 8,000 mile escape from a Soviet Union labor camp. Worthy of five stars but for two minor complaints:
1) The story is written through Josef Bauer, not the soldier himself. Still, Mr. Bauer does a respectable job.
2) This book is an English translation from the original German text. While the translation flows well, it is difficult to assess what may be lost in the translation.

Author: Josef Martin Bauer
Title: So weit die Füße tragen
[Title:] [As far as my feet will carry me]
Time: 1947-1952
Destination: through the Soviet Union
Length: 5 years
Type: mostly on foot
Rating: 8/10
The danger, the excitement!

The story: Sometime in the early fifties, accomplished German writer JMB comes across a guy who says he has escaped from one of the Soviet prison camps in Siberia. The story sounds hardly believable, but JMB decides to write a book about it anyway. The resulting work is a major success, even abroad.

Today, we have no way of knowing whether the original story was true or not. But there is a question that might be more important: are these 400+ pages interesting to read?

The answer is: yes.

JMB takes it very slow in the beginning, using almost 200 pages to describe the hardships in the prison camp (a lead mountain on the shores of the Bering strait). But once he has sent the hero on his way, his writing immediately picks up speed, and he makes it virtually impossible for the reader to put down the book. It is just too exciting!

This goes on for about another 200 pages, until the story is almost through. At this point, the hero is far from home, but JMB starts to jump huge time gaps, and sometimes it feels like he is merely summarizing rather than telling a story. Maybe he was pressed for time or something.

Anyway, the book is awesome. Had the beginning been a bit faster and the end a bit longer, this one would have been an epic 10.

This way, it is still very, very good though.

An 8/10.

A tremendous film that attempts to capture the trek made by those rounded up during Stalins collectivazation. I dont think there are any other movies that are so emotional and hard hitting as this that deals with the gulags. One of the best movies I have ever seen.

This is a phenomenal story about the escape of a German POW from a Soviet labor camp on the Bering Straight and his journey overland to Iran and freedom. Taking place in 1949-1951, Josef Bauer tells the story of an anonymous German POW from World War II who was sentenced to a 25 year term of hard labor in a lead mine in the very far corner of the Soviet empire. His escape and his encounters with nature and humans make for a wonderful, page-turning thriller.

The weak part of this work is the ending. Eighty per cent of the book sets up the escape and traces the journey across about one-third of Siberia. The last twenty per cent of the book takes the subject across two-thirds of Siberia and into Iran, thus giving a very superficial account of this part of the journey.

Reading between the lines, Bauer appears to have had a difficult time securing the cooperation of the subject of this story and his name is not given. It appears that while the subject may have cooperated with Bauer initially, the cooperation ceased and the story was brought to an abrupt conclusion. If this is true, the accuracy of the story can then be questioned and the anonymity of the central character does nothing to instill confidence in the reader that these events happened in the way that they are portrayed.

Even with these problems, however, the book is worth a read for its entertainment value alone.

I found this book to be inspiring and motivational. It is the amazing tale of a daring escape and a treacherous journey across the frozen Siberian north. They only thing that disappointed me was that the ending was anti-climactic in my opinion. Just a simply amazing book, there is a reason why it has been translated in to 15 languages and sold more then 12 millon copies.