His true life experience as a Polish army lieutenant. He was taken by the Russians in 1939. It details the torture he suffered along with 5,000 other captive Czechs, Poles, Fins, Latvians, Yugoslavs, Lithuanians, Americans, Estonians and others. He tells what life was like being packed shoulder to shoulder standing in boxcars on a 3,000 mile trip. He tells of the additional 1,000 mile walk they, all chained together, had to make in winter to arrive in northern Siberia at a prison work-camp.
Hero worship is strongest where there is least regard for human freedom.
He also tells a very descriptive and interesting story about his eventual escape. It is a book well worth reading. It helps to remind us of what war is really like. This book reminds us of just one little horrible phase of War. There are plenty of others.