We present to your attention a selection of the 10 most incredible escapes from prisons and concentration camps, some of which even became the plot for a couple of Hollywood blockbusters!
Pascal Payette: escaped from prison three times using a helicopter!
Pascal Payette, or Kalashnikov Pat, went to prison for murder during a robbery of a cash-in-transit vehicle. In 2001, he was sentenced to 30 years in prison and since then managed to escape from prison three times using a helicopter! Last time, in 2007, a helicopter hijacked half an hour earlier from the Cannes resort along with its pilot landed on the roof of the prison, from which three of his seriously armed accomplices jumped out in search of Payette. He flew off the roof with his masked accomplices. On the shore Mediterranean Sea they released the pilot and since then no one has heard anything about Pascal or his accomplices
John Dillinger: Escaped from prison with a fake gun made of wood and painted black with shoe polish.
The legendary Johnny D, who by the way was played by his namesake Johnny Depp in the recent Hollywood premiere, is an American bank robber of the 30s, he robbed at least a couple of dozen banks and escaped from prison twice. Dillinger spent some time in prison in Michigan, Indiana, until he was paroled in 1933. Four months later, he was again in prison - this time in Lima, Ohio, from where he was rescued by his armed gang, killing his jailer, Sheriff Jesse Serber. Most The gang was captured that same year in Tucson, Arizona, during a shootout at the Historic Congress Hotel. Dillinger was taken to the Lake County Jail in Crown Point, Indiana. He was accused of attempting to murder police officer William O'Malley during a bank robbery in East Chicago, Indiana, carried out almost immediately after Dillinger's escape from prison.
On March 3, 1934, Johnny D escaped from Crown Point (a prison from which escape was considered impossible at the time), which was guarded by a huge number of police and National Guard troops. The newspapers immediately reported that Dillinger had escaped from prison with a fake pistol made of wood and painted black with shoe polish. Using this gun, he forced the guard to open the door of his cell, and then took two hostages, gathered all the guards in his cell and locked them, and he calmly left the prison.
Alfie Hinds: Escaped the law three times, once by simply locking guards in a toilet.
Alfie Hinds is a British man who has escaped from the law over and over again, three times in total. For the fourth time, he left prison legally, having served his entire sentence. Hinds gained the reputation of a famous thief - by the way, his father actually died, being punished for armed robbery. In 1953, Alfie Hines was arrested for high-profile robbery jewelry store, $90 thousand in proceeds from which were never returned. In court, he pleaded not guilty and was sentenced to 12 years in prison. After Alfie somehow inexplicably escaped due to closed doors and a 6-meter prison wall, the public dubbed him Gooddini Hinds (in honor of the famous magician and illusionist). He led an honest life as a builder and decorator until Scotland Yard detectives finally tracked him down in 1956 and sent him back to prison after 248 days of searching. After his arrest, Hinds turned the law against the authorities, accusing the jailers of an illegal arrest and successfully used this incident to escape from the courthouse. When two guards took him to the toilet and removed his handcuffs so that he could do his business, he shoved them into the toilet and locked it from the outside with a padlock (his accomplices had previously built a wooden screw into the door with a rod bent into a ring so that he could do it). Hinds was captured at the airport only hours later. He made his third escape from Helmsford Prison. He then returned to Ireland, where he lived and worked as a car salesman for two years. IN once again he was captured when he was stopped by a police officer for driving an unregistered vehicle. This time he also used his intelligence to find a loophole in the law - at that time, escaping from prison was not considered a misdemeanor, so he was not given an additional sentence. So Alfie Hinds was sentenced to 6 years in prison for robbing a jewelery shop in 1953, plus he won a libel suit against the policeman who arrested him, and after his release he spent the rest of his life as a mini-celebrity, selling his story to the News of the World for $40,000.
Julian Shotard: escaped from prison by clinging to the bottom of the van that brought him to prison
In 2009, French arsonist Julian Chautard escaped prison in a bold and brazen manner. He managed to escape from a group of prisoners who had just arrived at Pentonville prison in north London. While other prisoners were being processed inside, Shotard managed to duck behind a prison van that had just brought them from Shersbrooke Crown Court (where Shotard was sentenced to seven years in prison). Julian successfully escaped the prison minutes later, clinging to the bottom of the same van. Later, he himself came to the police and surrendered to the authorities.
Frank Morris, Clarence and John Anglin are the only prisoners who managed to escape from Alcatraz
Over the 29 years of operation of the Alcatraz prison, attempts were made to escape from it many times. According to prison records, there were a total of 14 escape attempts involving 36 prisoners (two of them twice), 23 were caught, six were shot and killed during the escape, three were lost at sea and were never heard from again. - their bodies were never found.
But on June 11, 1962, Frank Morris and brothers John and Clarence Anglin successfully executed one of the most intricate escape plans ever devised. Morris and the Anglins climbed up the ventilation shaft and climbed out onto the roof through one of the chimneys. The trio then climbed down the roof and floated off the island on rubber rafts. The next morning, police searched for the fugitives in Alcatraz, but were unsuccessful.
The prison warden explained that the prisoners were not immediately captured because they placed fake heads made from a mixture of soap, toilet paper and real hair, on their beds, which fooled the prison officers conducting night inspections. Morris and the Anglin brothers subsequently disappeared without a trace and are still wanted by the FBI, although they are believed to have drowned in San Francisco Bay while trying to swim away from the island.
Billy Hayes: escaped from Turkish prison and became a writer
Sentenced to 30 years in a Turkish prison for drug smuggling in 1970, the 22-year-old American was initially sentenced to four years and two months in a Turkish prison; a couple of weeks before the end of his sentence, he learned that the authorities had decided to sentence him to life in prison, so he decided that he had to escape. After 6 months of planning, he got into a fight with a guard, stole his uniform, and, taking with him $2,000 that his father had smuggled into the prison in a photo album, Hayes stole a rowboat and made it to shore. Hoping to reach Greece, Hayes dyed his blond hair black and headed for the border. Barefoot, hungry and without a passport, he swam across the river and walked for many miles. When Hayes finally came across the armed soldier, Billy thought he had lost his chance at freedom, but the soldier began shouting at him in Greek, which meant that he had crossed the border after all. Ultimately, Hayes returned safely to the United States, and then wrote an autobiographical book about his life in prison and his escape for the Midnight Express publication.
Texas Seven: escaped from prison with maximum level protection using an extremely elaborate plan
On December 13, 2000, seven inmates of the John Connally Unit, the most secure prison in Texas' Karnes County, escaped using a complex scheme. Using several well-planned ploys, the seven criminals subdued and locked up nine prison guards, four correctional officers, and three uninvolved prisoners. The escape occurred during the quietest period of the day, when surveillance of the maintenance area was reduced to a minimum - during lunch and during counting. Most of these tricks involved one of the criminals calling out to someone while the other hit the unsuspecting person in the head from behind. As soon as the victim was neutralized, the criminals took some of the clothes, tied her up and locked her in the transformer room. The attackers stole clothes credit cards, and the identification documents of their victims. The group also impersonated prison officials over the phone and made false calls to deflect authorities' suspicions. After this, three members of the group, wearing stolen civilian clothes, made their way to the rear gate of the prison. They pretended to be electricians who were supposed to install video monitors. One guard at the gatehouse was taken down, after which the trio raided the guard tower and stole numerous weapons. Meanwhile, four other criminals called the guards of this same tower tower to distract them. Then they stole a pickup truck service personnel, in which they drove up to the back gate, picked up their comrades and left the prison. A year later, they were all tracked down and caught, which was facilitated by the TV show America's Most Wanted.
Prisoners of “Rat Hell”: the most famous (and successful) escape during the American Civil War
Alfred Wetzler and Rudolf Vrba: escaped from Auschwitz, and later wrote a report on this Nazi camp that later saved many lives
Wetzler was a Slovak Jew, and one of the few Jews who managed to escape from the Auschwitz concentration camp during the Holocaust. Wetzler fled with a fellow Jew named Rudolf Vrba. Using the camp's dungeon, at 2 pm on Friday, April 7, 1944—Easter Eve—the two men hid inside a wooden pile that was intended to be used to build the "Mexico" section for the new arrivals. She was behind the barbed wire of Birkenau's inner perimeter, but in the outer perimeter guards remained vigilant all day. Other prisoners placed boards around the sunken area to hide the men, and then sprayed the area with sharp Russian tobacco soaked in gasoline to fool the dogs. Wetzler and Vrba hid for 4 nights to avoid being caught again.
On April 10, wearing Dutch suits, coats, and boots that they had taken from the camp, they moved south, paralleling the Sola River and reaching the Polish border with Slovakia after 133 kilometers. They found their way thanks to a page torn from a children's atlas that Vrba found in a warehouse.
Wetzler and Vrba later became famous for a report in which they described the internal structure of the Auschwitz camp - the layout of the camp site, the design of the gas chambers, crematoria and, most convincingly, the label on the Zyklon gas canister. These 32 pages were the first detailed report on Auschwitz to reach the West and which the Allies regarded as credible. The report is said to have saved 120,000 lives.
Dieter Dengler: one of the few soldiers who managed to escape from a prisoner of war camp during Vietnam War
In addition to him, such an escape was also achieved by Captain Charles Fredrik Klasmann, who was shot and captured, only to later escape with 6 other inhabitants of the camp, five of whom were never found, and Nick Rowe, who escaped from the Vietnam Congress camp and wrote a book about it about "Five years to freedom"
The escape stories are so thrilling and dangerous that they are all worthy of Hollywood adaptations (and some have already received them). Perhaps that's why we don't care that these criminals are bank robbers, murderers, or worse. What's important to us is the story, the great escape, the day when a man who thought he would never be free again escaped... even if only for a short time.
A 49-year-old criminal named Choi Gap Bok was arrested on September 12, 2012. Six days later, he successfully escaped from his cell at a police station in the South Korean city of Daegu. On the morning of the sixth day, Gap Bok asked for cream. After the three guards had fallen asleep, the prisoner slathered himself in cream and slipped out of the food opening at the bottom of the bars. Gap Bok was only 164cm tall and had studied yoga for over 20 years. The food opening was 15 centimeters high and 45 centimeters wide. To gain some time and fool the guards, Gap Bok covered the pillows with a blanket. Upon discovering the loss, police and journalists were shocked. By the way, 22 years earlier, Gap Bok escaped from a convoy bus on the way to prison. He simply slipped through the bars on the bus windows. After escaping in 2012, he tried to steal a car, but police set up roadblocks and Gap Bok had to flee to the mountains. Although he was pursued by helicopters, dogs and people, he moved exclusively at night, so it was impossible to catch him. He ended up robbing the hut and leaving an apology note in it, signed "Falsely Accused Thief Choi Gap Bok." Once the note was discovered, tracking him down was no longer difficult. He was caught a couple of days later and transferred to a prison where the food openings were much smaller.
Pascal Payet is a French bank robber and murderer who gained notoriety for his involvement in escapes using stolen helicopters. And not in one, not in two, but in three. After his arrest in 1999, Payet was sent to prison in the French village of Luynes. In 2001, he made his first escape with Frederic Impocco using a hijacked helicopter. He spent a couple of years free, but in 2003 he hijacked another helicopter, returned to Luynes and helped the remaining members of his gang escape: Frank Perletto, Michel Valero and Eric Alboreo. The daring undertaking led to his capture, and this time he was placed under the strictest surveillance. He was not only put in solitary confinement, but was also transferred from prison to prison every 6 months. Despite precautions, on July 14, 2007, Bastille Day, four accomplices hijacked another helicopter, landed it on the roof of the prison, and Payet was once again free. However, he didn’t have time to really enjoy it, because a couple of months later he was caught in Spain. On at the moment It is unknown which prison Payet is serving his sentence in, and French authorities have no plans to share this information.
This is one of the most outrageous escapes in US history - six prisoners waiting death penalty, escaped from a supposedly “impregnable” prison. They simply walked out the main doors. Led by notorious killers, James and Linwood Briley, the six men spent months planning their escape. After studying the guards' schedules and habits, they found the perfect moment. The escape began on May 31, 1984, when prisoners attacked and overpowered guards as they made their rounds. After changing into guard uniforms and putting on helmets, the prisoners moved towards the exit. To distract the other guards, they covered the TV with a sheet, placed it on a gurney and announced that they were removing a bomb from the death row. For added effect, one of the prisoners sprayed a fire extinguisher as they were walking out the door. Their disappearance was noticed only half an hour later.
On December 13, 2000, seven prisoners shocked everyone by escaping from a maximum security prison in Texas. Around 11:20 a.m., prisoners began attacking civilian employees, guards, and inmates. While one person was distracting the victim, the second one attacked her from behind. They took clothes, identification documents and money, after which they tied up the victims, gagged them and hid them. Disguised, three prisoners headed to the observation tower, posing as video surveillance specialists. Meanwhile, the remaining four prisoners called the tower to distract the attention of the guards. Three disguised prisoners attacked the guards on the tower and stole weapons. Four prisoners, meanwhile, stole a prison truck, met the trio at the main gate, and so the Texas Seven rode off into the sunset. Instead of lying low, they went all out and robbed several stores. During one of the robberies, police officer Aubrey Hawkins died. A month later, the Texas Seven were caught and the leader, George Rivas, was charged with Aubrey's murder and executed in 2012.
Henri Charrière was a French criminal with a butterfly tattoo on his chest. In October 1931 he was accused of murder and sentenced to 30 years in prison and 10 years of hard labor. He spent some time in prison in France, after which he was transferred to the Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni prison in Guiana. He escaped from this prison in 1933 with two other prisoners, but they were recaptured after a shipwreck. Charrière fled again and was sheltered Indian tribe, with whom he stayed for several months. When he left the tribe, he was recaptured and transported to Devil's Island, where he spent two years in solitary confinement. Conditions on the island were terrible, prison violence was rampant, and tropical diseases could kill anyone. He repeatedly tried to escape, but each time he was caught and severely punished. After 11 years of imprisonment, Charrière finally managed to escape. He filled a couple of bags with coconuts and jumped off the cliff into the water. Using sacks of coconuts as a life preserver, he wandered at sea for three days until he washed up on land. He was caught and sentenced to imprisonment in Venezuela, and a year later they were released and given citizenship. Stories about Charrière's escapes are described in his autobiography "Papillon" ("The Moth").
In 1987, one of the robberies ended unsuccessfully for Richard Lee McNair. He killed a man named Jerry Teese and shot another man four more times, but he survived. He was found and sentenced to two life sentences and 30 years for robbery. But immediately on the day of his arrest, McNair escaped his handcuffs using chapstick and fled the station. He was caught trying to hide in a tree, but the branch broke off and he fell to the ground. He was taken to prison where he began digging an escape tunnel, but was unable to finish as he was transferred to another prison. In 1992, he escaped from a North Dakota prison through a ventilation shaft, and this time enjoyed ten months of freedom. Although McNair had already proven his daring, it was his third escape attempt that made him a legend. In April 2006, McNair hid in a mail container and sent himself out of prison. The package arrived at its destination 75 minutes later, and McNair cut himself out of the box. He fled to Canada, where he was hiding whole year. In October 2007, he was caught driving a stolen pickup truck. He is now serving his sentence in a maximum security prison in Florida, where he has virtually no chance of escape.
In 1943, German prison camp inmate Roger "Big X" Bushell planned one of the most famous escapes in history. The plan to free 200 prisoners of war was to dig three hundred-meter tunnels at the same time, which were nicknamed Tom, Dick and Harry. Stalag Luft III was not your typical POW camp. Here prisoners played basketball, volleyball, fencing and gardening. They read books, performed plays every other week and received a decent education. But a prison is a prison, and with such an abundance of tools, it is not surprising that someone tried to escape. 600 prisoners began digging tunnels in 1943. Squadron Leader Bob Nelson came up with an air pump that allowed prisoners to work safely underground. While work on the tunnels was going on, the prisoners bribed the German guards, and they brought them civilian clothes, documents, German uniform and cards. Work on Dick stopped when the Germans erected a building right on the site where the exit was planned. In September 1943 Tom was discovered and Harry became last hope. The escape began on the moonless night of March 24, 1945. Oddly enough, the entrance to the tunnel froze, delaying the escape by almost two hours. Because of this and the new guard, only 10 prisoners per hour could go down into the tunnel, so the escape progressed slowly. Of the 200 prisoners, only 76 managed to escape. The 77th was caught as he ran towards the forest. Of the 76 who escaped, 73 were caught. Hitler ordered everyone executed, but in the end 17 were allowed to return to Stalag Luft III, and three were sent to a concentration camp. The rest were executed. Of the three who managed to escape, two ended up on a Swedish ship, and one reached the British consulate in Spain through France. Based on this story famous film starring Steven McQueen.
It was considered impossible to escape from Maze Prison - it was called the most escape-proof prison in Europe. However, on September 25, 1983, the largest prison break in British history took place here. Of course, as in other successful escapes, the prisoners began planning it months in advance. Two prisoners, Bobby "Big Bob" Story and Henry Kelly, worked as orderlies, which allowed them to study the prison for weak points safe. Both were members of the IRA, and the organization helped them smuggle six pistols into prison. All that was left to do was wait. At 14:30 the escape began. The prisoners used the carried weapons to attack the jailers and prevent them from raising the alarm. The guards were taken hostage, some were stabbed, others were shot in the stomach, and one of the guards survived a gunshot wound to the head. Within 20 minutes, the prisoners had full control of their block, but they had to wait for transport. At 15:25 a food truck arrived. The driver and another guard were taken hostage, and 37 prisoners climbed into the truck, taking with them the guards' uniforms and weapons. At the main gate of the prison, prisoners took several more hostages. Officer James Ferris attempted to raise the alarm but was overtaken and stabbed three times. The soldier on the tower reported what was happening to the combat team while others tried to block the gate with their vehicles. The prisoners opened fire on them, then captured one of the officers along with the car and drove it towards the gate. Unfortunately for the prisoners, the IRA auxiliary team was five minutes late and they were forced to steal cars and flee for their lives. A total of 35 prisoners escaped, only one was caught.
On June 11, 1962, one of the most infamous prison escapes in US history occurred. Not only were the fugitives not caught, but the scale of their escape shocked prison guards, local police and the FBI. About six months before the escape, brothers John and Clarence Anglin, along with Frank Morris (all three bank robbers), found several blades on the prison floor. Using these blades, they began to expand the ventilation shafts in their cells (they even built a homemade drill from a vacuum cleaner engine). At the same time, they purchased 50 raincoats from their fellow inmates to build a raft on which they could cross the icy San Francisco Bay. They also sculpted their own heads out of papier-mâché to confuse the guards - they even glued real hair to them, which they got from the prison hairdresser. On the night of their escape, they laid their heads on the beds and slipped out through dug tunnels. Three prisoners climbed down from the roof of Alcatraz along a 15-meter wall, inflated a homemade raft and lowered it into the water. The guards discovered the false heads only in the morning, and immediately began a search. Although the remains of the raft, oars, and personal belongings of the prisoners were recovered from the water, the FBI (after 17 years of investigation) ruled that the three men most likely drowned during the escape. However, in 2012, Anglin's family said the brothers survived. The family claimed that they received phone calls and even a Christmas card from John Anglin, and their close friend allegedly saw the brothers in Brazil and even took a photograph.
Today, Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman is perhaps one of the most notorious famous people in the world. “Public Enemy Number One” topped the rankings of both the FBI and Forbes, all thanks to the influence of his Sinaloa drug cartel. In 1993, he was arrested and sentenced to 20 years in a Mexican prison. He immediately began plotting his escape, offering bribes to the guards, police and support workers, many of whom he hired. On January 19, 2001, a guard simply opened Guzman's cell, he hid in a cart with dirty laundry, and he was taken straight through main entrance. Helper Javier Camberos (who was later imprisoned for facilitating the escape) took Guzman away from prison in the trunk of a car. El Chapo was caught again in 2014, but he only served a year. On July 11, 2015, Guzman disappeared from his cell. At a depth of three meters under his cell, the guards discovered a tunnel one and a half kilometers long, 1.7 meters high and almost a meter wide. They also found the motorcycle that El Chapo apparently rode through the tunnel. On January 8, 2016, he was caught again and returned to prison. His daughter, Rosa Izila Guzman Ortiz, recently said her father crossed the Mexican border twice in 2015 to visit his family in California.
13.5. Escape from the Tower
Jesuit priest John Gerard became one of the first who managed to escape from the Tower of London dungeon, where he was imprisoned, suspected of trying to undermine the authority of Queen Elizabeth I in the eyes of his subjects. Having experienced several instruments of torture and being physically weakened, but not broken in spirit, the priest decided to act. Having bribed the jailer, he conspired with the Catholic priest John Arden, who was sitting in a nearby tower, and the two developed an escape plan. Having sent his accomplices to freedom a letter written in orange juice (in prisons of that time, healthy eating), on the night of October 4, 1597, two prisoners loosened a stone in the wall of one of the dungeons, climbed the tower, lowered down a cord with a load tied to it, and lifted up the rope obtained by their comrades. With her help, they descended the wall and rocky cliff to the surface of the Thames, where a boat was already waiting for them.
13. Escape from Camp Libby
During Civil War In the United States, a group of captured Northern soldiers escaped from the Libby prisoner of war camp in Richmond, Virginia. The prisoners chose the most popular method of escaping from prison - undermining. Digging a tunnel in a damp basement infested with rats and cockroaches was not the most pleasant task, but 17 days of intense labor gave the captives freedom. True, the overall outcome of the escape was not so positive: of the 109 escapees, 59 were reunited with the Union army, 48 were recaptured, and two drowned in the nearby James River.
12. Casanova's Escape
If it weren’t for the couple hundred thousand ladies he conquered, it is quite possible that the Venetian writer and adventurer Giacomo Casanova would have become famous thanks to his escape from prison. In 1753, when he was already known as a womanizer and rowdy, Casanova was arrested and sentenced to imprisonment in Leeds prison in Italy. He managed to drag an iron rod he found on a walk into the cell, sharpen it with a piece of marble and make a hole in the wooden floor that led into a tunnel. On the eve of his escape, he conspired with a prisoner in a neighboring cell, and the conspirators, connecting two tunnels, escaped to freedom, after which they stole the gondola on which Casanova solemnly sailed into the city. We assume that retelling this story to gentle young ladies subsequently only increased the number of his love victories.
11. Escape from Turkey
American Billy Hayes spent five years in a Turkish prison after being convicted of drug trafficking. Hayes' escape turned out to be even more Hollywood than it was later shown in the film Midnight Express. He had to row a boat in a thunderstorm, hide in Turkey for several days, dyeing his hair a new color every day to confuse detectives, and finally swim across the border into Greece. The success of the film Midnight Express, based on these events, so angered Turkish authorities that they issued an arrest warrant for Hayes through Interpol, but failed to recover the captive. Returning to the USA, Hayes married, settled in Oklahoma and earned world fame, writing a book about his adventures.
10. Escape from a Vietnamese concentration camp
9. Escape from Butyrka prison
In 2010, burglar Vitaly Ostrovsky greatly diversified the lives of employees of a Moscow pre-trial detention center by escaping in broad daylight in front of an astonished public. One afternoon, an unarmed guard came into Ostrovsky’s cell to take him to the bathhouse. They forgot to put handcuffs on him, and therefore, seizing the moment, Ostrovsky pushed the guards away and rushed to the door, which, by a strange coincidence, was not blocked. Having run out into courtyard, the prisoner ran onto a 4.5-meter fence and, showing the talent of Spider-Man, began to climb up it with stunning dexterity. By the time the prison guards realized what had happened, and the dogs ran along the perimeter of the fence, there was already no trace of the criminal.
8. Hollywood Escape
French repeat offender Pascal Payette, nicknamed Kalashnikov, became famous thanks to the most Hollywood escape scenario. Having rushed back to prison after two successful escapes, Payet thought of something cooler than banal digging and dressing up as a security guard. In July 2007, when France celebrated Bastille Day, on the roof of Grasse prison French city In Luna, where he was serving his sentence, a helicopter hijacked in Cannes landed. Three men jumped out of the cabin, waving weapons, ran into the prison building, took Pascal with them and flew away in an unknown direction. Three months later, the criminal was detained again in Spain, but he had already gone down in history.
7. Stealing a Ford
The legendary 1930s gangster John Dillinger escaped from prison as often as he took the next beauty to bed. In 1934, after another series of bank robberies, Dillinger was sent to a prison for especially dangerous criminals in Lake County, Illinois, guarded by an entire army of police and National Guard soldiers. However, the inventive Johnny found a way to escape here: he made a fake gun from a bar of soap, which he painted black with shoe polish. Threatening with a fake gun, Dillinger broke free, after which, in his own style, he stole the sheriff's new Ford and drove far and wide. Alas, the FBI was on his trail, and not only freedom, but also Dillinger’s life was soon cut short. However, his adventures inspired director Michael Mann's film Johnny D., which immortalized the story.
6. Escape from Kresty
On November 11, 1922, bandit Lenka Panteleev and three of his accomplices escaped from the St. Petersburg Kresty prison. They managed to break free thanks to a pile of firewood that had been carelessly stacked near one of the outer walls that surrounded the area. Using firewood it was possible to jump over the fence, but no one wanted to break their legs, so the prisoners showed their imagination and wove ropes from blankets and sheets, along which they carefully lowered themselves to the ground on the appointed day. The escape was carried out on Police Day, as a gift to the Soviet guards of order, who, having checked in, slightly relaxed their vigilance, for which they paid - first with their position, and in 1933 with their heads.
6. Escape in a barrel of cabbage
When the military district court Tsarist Russia in 1904, he sentenced the founder of the Social Revolutionary Fighting Organization, Mikhail Gershuni, to lifelong hard labor in Eastern Siberia, they clearly underestimated the ingenuity of the oppositionist. The exiles of the Akatui convict prison salted cabbage for the winter, which they transported outside the territory in large wooden barrels. The cellmates stuffed the Social Revolutionary into one of these barrels, having previously placed two rubber breathing tubes to his nose and mouth and placed an iron plate on his head in case some policeman decided to pierce the barrel with a saber. Having used all his courage - the barrel still did not smell of violets - Gershuni sat in captivity a la Tsar Guidon almost the entire night. There was not enough air, cabbage juice flooded his eyes and mouth, and as a result the fugitive squeezed out the lid of the barrel with his shoulders and rose to his full height. Luckily for him, help arrived. Once free, Gershuni traveled by train to Japan, and from there to the United States, from where he never returned to his homeland.
4. Escape from Auschwitz
Hungarian-born Alfred Wetzler and Rudolf Vrba were among several Jews who escaped Auschwitz during World War II. In April 1944, waiting for an opportune moment, they spent four days laying firewood in the camp. At this time, other prisoners were scattering tobacco dipped in gasoline around the territory to confuse the prison shepherd dogs. Wetzler took with him to freedom a 32-page report on Auschwitz he had compiled with detailed map and a label from a canister of gas used in gas chambers. This report, later entitled "The Auschwitz Protocols", became one of the first evidence of the existence of death camps.
3. Flight on plywood from the roof of Moscow State University
In the summer of 1952, on the Leninsky, and now Vorobyovy, Mountains, the construction of the main building of Moscow State University was completed, in which thousands of prisoners who had construction specialties were involved. Towards the end of construction, the party leadership decided to save on security and equip a new camp center right on the 24th and 25th floors of the unfinished high-rise building, in order to complete the work on time and save on security. However, among the prisoners there was a craftsman who built a kind of hang glider out of plywood and wire and flew it straight into the sky. The ending options for this story vary: according to some stories, the desperate prisoner was shot by guards in the air, according to others, he crashed, according to others, he escaped, landing safely 11 km from Moscow, where a piece of plywood was later found. The veracity of this story cannot be proven, but there were witnesses who claimed to have seen everything with their own eyes.
2. Escape from Alcatraz
In the entire history of the existence of the Alcatraz fortress - a fortified bastion on an island near San Francisco, where, among others, the gangster Al Capone whiled away his days - it was possible to escape from it only once. Alcatraz's reputation as a completely reliable prison was undermined by prisoner #1441 Frank Morris, who had a full range of crimes behind him, including drug possession, armed robbery and several escapes from other prisons. Morris conspired with three other prisoners, and they began to pick at the cracked concrete in the walls of their cells using spoons and other improvised materials. It took two years to dig, and during this time the prisoners managed to think through everything. They made stuffed animals from pieces of wall, soap, toilet paper and hair, which they laid on their bunks and lovingly covered with blankets so that the guards would not notice their absence for as long as possible. On June 11, 1962, at about 10 pm, Morris and his two accomplices, the Anglin brothers, reached the ventilation shaft through dug tunnels, after which they launched homemade rafts, and no one heard from them again. The prison administration preferred to believe that the fugitives drowned in the bay, but since the bodies were never found, there is a possibility that they happily made it to shore and spent the rest of their days somewhere in Acapulco.
1. The Great Escape
In terms of preparation, scale and level of risk, most prison escapes have not come close to the escape of 76 soldiers from the German Stalag Luft III camp during World War II. The escape was the result of the work of almost six hundred prisoners who dug tunnels at a depth of nine meters underground under the code names “Tom”, “Dick” and “Harry”, which led from the camp to the nearest forest. During the digging process, they used supports made of wooden blocks, electric lamps and even a pump to bring air into the tunnels. Having obtained civilian clothes and passports, on March 24, 1944, the soldiers decided to flee. Alas, the tunnel did not reach the edge of the forest, and the prisoners who climbed to the surface found themselves in the field of view of the guards. 76 people were able to escape, but the 77th was spotted and the tunnel was closed. The Nazis searched for the fugitives with particular zeal, and in the end all but three prisoners were discovered.
