6. Papillon
Henri Charrière was a French criminal with a tattoo of a butterfly on his chest. In October 1931 he was convicted of murdering a pimp and sentenced to 30 years in prison and 10 years of hard labor. After a stint in a French prison, he was moved to the penal colony called Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni off the coast of French Guiana. He escaped from this prison in 1933 with two other men but after a shipwreck they were recaptured. Again, Charrière escaped, and was adopted into a native tribe where he remained for months. When he left the natives he was recaptured, moved to Devil’s Island, and left in solitary confinement for 2 years.
When he reemerged from solitary, he was met with the brutal conditions of Devil’s Island where prisoner-on-prisoner violence was rampant and tropical diseases threatened to kill almost everyone. He attempted to escape many more times but was caught and brutally punished. After 11 years in prison, Charrière finally was able to successfully escape by filling a sack with coconuts and plunging into the sea from a high cliff. Using the coconuts as a life preserver, he drifted for nearly 3 days before reaching the mainland. He was captured, served one year in a Venezuelan prison, but was then released and granted citizenship.
The stories of Charrière’s escapes from prison come mostly from his semi-autobiographical bookPapillon. He wrote the book in Venezuela, and even though French officials claim that Charrière was never a prisoner at Devil’s Island, he says otherwise. The book was published in 1970 and was made into a film in December 1973, starring Steve McQueen. Unfortunately, Charrière died in July 1973 and tragically never saw the film about his great escape.
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