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Quiz about Oh No Youve Been Sentenced to Devils Island
Quiz about Oh No Youve Been Sentenced to Devils Island

Oh No! You've Been Sentenced to Devil's Island! Quiz


The year is 1900 and the French courts have just found you guilty of a crime and have sentenced you to time at Devil's Island prison. What will your life be like? The pictures will give clues!

A photo quiz by stephgm67. Estimated time: 4 mins.
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Author
stephgm67
Time
4 mins
Type
Photo Quiz
Quiz #
388,402
Updated
Dec 03 21
# Qns
10
Difficulty
Average
Avg Score
8 / 10
Plays
441
Awards
Top 20% Quiz
Last 3 plays: Guest 203 (3/10), Guest 216 (6/10), Guest 194 (3/10).
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Question 1 of 10
1. When you receive your prison sentence, you find out you are going to Devil's Island which is over 4,000 miles away from France. As you are boarding the ship, you are curious what country awaits you. Where is Devil's Island located? Hint


Question 2 of 10
2. After your 20 day journey, you are at the gates of Camp de La Transportation. This is the entrance to your prison here in French Guiana. You realize you are in the main penal establishment on the mainland of the country. But you are told there are also parts of the prison on islands. How many islands make up the Devil's Island network? Hint


Question 3 of 10
3. You've been addressed by the head of the prison and given your red and white striped uniform. Now it's time to head to bed in your cell. What is your night going to look like? Hint


Question 4 of 10
4. When you awake the next morning, you open your secret Plan d'Evasion, which is a small tube holding essentials. In it, you have stored some money, a cigarette, and a tool. Where did you hide this so the guards would not confiscate it? Hint


Question 5 of 10
5. Your thought now is of escape. However, you have heard that it is almost impossible between the predators of the jungle and the creatures of the ocean. Most escape plans have failed. However, in 1941, Henri Charriere would be one of the fortunate few to accomplish this mission. What was he known as? Hint


Question 6 of 10
6. Your daily food allotment is very meager and you are feeling sick. You head to the prison hospital to find it lacking much equipment or many doctors. While there, you learn of the appalling death rate at Devil's Island. What caused a vast majority of the deaths? Hint


Question 7 of 10
7. You return from the hospital in time to be ordered outside in the courtyard. One of the prisoners has attacked a guard and you are told to watch the punishment. What happens to those men who hurt or kill the prison employees? Hint


Question 8 of 10
8. You notice a cemetery not far from the prison gates and assume that is where all of the deceased convicts are laid to rest. You discover that is not the case at all. What happens to the dead inmates? Hint


Question 9 of 10
9. You are quite lonely and are amazed to learn there are women convicts in the area also! You are less happy most of them were sent here because of infanticide. Where are these women located? Hint


Question 10 of 10
10. At last! You have served your time at this prison and are paroled. True or False: You are put on a ship back to your home in France.



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Most Recent Scores
Mar 25 2024 : Guest 203: 3/10
Mar 12 2024 : Guest 216: 6/10
Mar 08 2024 : Guest 194: 3/10
Feb 29 2024 : Guest 68: 9/10
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Feb 16 2024 : BarbaraMcI: 9/10
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quiz
Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts
1. When you receive your prison sentence, you find out you are going to Devil's Island which is over 4,000 miles away from France. As you are boarding the ship, you are curious what country awaits you. Where is Devil's Island located?

Answer: French Guiana

Christopher Columbus was among the first to discover the new land in South America just north of Brazil, but by the 1600s the French had claimed the area. News of an amazing city called El Dorado brought many French citizens to this new paradise. However, upon settling in, most of the 12,000 people died in the first year of 1763 from diseases and hostile natives.

As the remaining settlers returned to France, news spread that it was a hard land to cultivate and maintain. Napoleon III decided it would be an ideal place to send criminals from the overcrowded jails and floating prisons.

He hoped that after their time was served they could become the settlers he wanted in the new land.
2. After your 20 day journey, you are at the gates of Camp de La Transportation. This is the entrance to your prison here in French Guiana. You realize you are in the main penal establishment on the mainland of the country. But you are told there are also parts of the prison on islands. How many islands make up the Devil's Island network?

Answer: Three

Most of the prisoners were held in the main compound inland. However, the penal group also covered three islands named Isles du Salut. These three rocky islands each handled specific prisoners. Royale was where the administrative body stayed. However, it was also where prisoners who broke rules were sent to do back-breaking labor cutting stones to form a road that never was completed. St. Joseph was the island where those unfortunate souls who had solitary confinement were sent.

Here they spent most of their time in total darkness and complete silence before many went insane.

The final island, Devil's Island itself, was where political prisoners were kept.
3. You've been addressed by the head of the prison and given your red and white striped uniform. Now it's time to head to bed in your cell. What is your night going to look like?

Answer: Tightly manacled to a bolt on the hard bed

Prisoners worked twelve hours a day doing everything from constructing buildings out of local clay bricks to cleaning the facilities. The camp was organized according to the type of criminal and housing differed on this basis. There were some barracks, some communal cells, and some solitary cells that only measured 1.8 x 2 meters. Regardless, the beds were made of concrete or wood and each night their feet would be manacled to a metal bolt at the foot of the bed.

A rough block of wood sufficed as the pillow.
4. When you awake the next morning, you open your secret Plan d'Evasion, which is a small tube holding essentials. In it, you have stored some money, a cigarette, and a tool. Where did you hide this so the guards would not confiscate it?

Answer: In your lower intestines

A plan is a small tube used as a suppository that contains hidden "necessities" for prison life. Having heard tales of the harsh life at Devil's Island, prisoners would load up a plan with things like currency, small tools, medicine, etc. They then hid them in their lower intestines so as not be detected by guards and prison personnel.

The plans were made of aluminum, even gold at times, or other non-corrosive materials. Prisoners would "hold" these plans for years at a time. For those fortunate few who actually received letters or packages from home, anything worth keeping was added to the hidden plan.
5. Your thought now is of escape. However, you have heard that it is almost impossible between the predators of the jungle and the creatures of the ocean. Most escape plans have failed. However, in 1941, Henri Charriere would be one of the fortunate few to accomplish this mission. What was he known as?

Answer: Papillon

Henri Charriere was convicted in France of murder and sent to Devil's Island. As soon as he reached the area, he began plans of escape. However, as was pointed out by the jail's commander, escape was practically fruitless. If one tried to go by way of the jungle, snakes and hostile local tribes were waiting. If one tried to go by water, either the piranha in the rivers or the sharks in the water were biding their time. And if one were caught trying to escape, there was the penalty of doing time on one of the islands either in solitary confinement or harsh labor in the steaming heat. Charriere was held in the penal compound for over 11 years and dared several escapes.

His final successful one was in 1941 when he used a makeshift raft of coconut bags to float to freedom.

He was called Papillon because of his butterfly tattoo and the fact he preferred freedom.
6. Your daily food allotment is very meager and you are feeling sick. You head to the prison hospital to find it lacking much equipment or many doctors. While there, you learn of the appalling death rate at Devil's Island. What caused a vast majority of the deaths?

Answer: Diseases such as malaria

The hospitals that served the guards and inmates were located on the mainland and a smaller one on Royale. Both were under-staffed and did not carry enough equipment or medicine. The men were fed barely enough to keep them alive and most were severely malnourished.

This also caused them to be especially susceptible to the diseases that abounded in the area. They had to contend with malaria, yellow fever, typhus, cholera, and even leprosy. Added to all of this was the fact that poisonous insects and reptiles swarmed the area and even bats attacked the prisoners, many of whom contacted rabies from the flying nocturnal mammals.
7. You return from the hospital in time to be ordered outside in the courtyard. One of the prisoners has attacked a guard and you are told to watch the punishment. What happens to those men who hurt or kill the prison employees?

Answer: Their head was chopped off with a guillotine

The guillotine at Devil's Island was nicknamed "The Merry Widow". It was used as the punishment for any inmate who injured or killed a guard or an employee of the facility. When someone was caught in this act, the rest of the inmates were ordered outside to watch.

Another inmate, usually one detested by the rest, was chosen to operate the machinery. The piece of equipment often had a rusty blade due to the rainy weather and many times the blade had to be dropped more than once to sever the head. Afterwards, the head was held up for all prisoners to view and then often sent overseas to France to prove justice was being done in the colony.
8. You notice a cemetery not far from the prison gates and assume that is where all of the deceased convicts are laid to rest. You discover that is not the case at all. What happens to the dead inmates?

Answer: They are thrown into the shark infested waters

There are two cemeteries on the Devil's Island compound. One on St. Joseph's island is for the employees of the facility and their wives. A smaller one on Royale Island is for children of the families that lived there and maintained the prisons. The inmates themselves were treated in a rather more unceremonious way.

They were wrapped in a simple shroud, rowed out into the ocean, and dumped overboard. The area where they were dropped was a feeding ground for the local sharks who would wait for their next meal.

In a macabre twist, local fisherman often killed the sharks in that area and sold the meat back to the prison to be served to inmates.
9. You are quite lonely and are amazed to learn there are women convicts in the area also! You are less happy most of them were sent here because of infanticide. Where are these women located?

Answer: In a local convent which also served as a prison

France was interested in colonizing the French Guiana area. They decided to send some of their convicted WOMEN prisoners there to, hopefully, eventually marry the male prisoners and start families in the country. Over 500 women were shipped overseas and were held in a local convent run by the Sisters of St. Joseph de Cluny.

The nuns not only helped the women spiritually but also were, in effect, their jailers. Supervised visits were arranged between male convicts about to be paroled and the females at the convent.

However, things did not go as planned. Since most of the women were convicted of killing their own children, the men were not keen on raising more with them. And the harsh environmental conditions caused the women to be sick also. By 1907, the practice had ceased.
10. At last! You have served your time at this prison and are paroled. True or False: You are put on a ship back to your home in France.

Answer: False

The French government had instituted a policy called doublage concerning Devil's Island. This means that after an inmate serves his time, he must also live in French Guiana for an EQUAL amount of years. If he served over 8 years, he must live there forever.

This was to "encourage" colonization of the area. The inmates were given a small parcel of land but were expected to earn their own living. This was difficult as many had no skills in this new land and the locals looked down upon them. The vast majority of the poor souls send to Devil's Island never made it home to France whether from an early death or enforced colonization.
Source: Author stephgm67

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor stedman before going online.
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