The Anarchist Icon Behind One of the Most Daring Prison Breaks by Sea

Simón Radowitzky became a hero among the working class for assassinating a corrupt Buenos Aires police chief in 1909. His supporters were determined to free him at all costs.

This piece is the fourth in our series, The Ever-Present Liquid, a special collaboration from Narratively and Creative Nonfiction exploring the shape-shifting magic and destructiveness of water in all its forms. You can learn more about this series and experience the rest of the stories as we publish them here each week throughout September.

Illustration by Aidi Riera | Story edited by Jesse Sposato

On a spring morning in 1918, a schooner named the Sokolo slid from the shores of Ushuaia, Argentina, into the Beagle Channel. In and of itself, a boat embarking into the frigid, unforgiving seas was nothing out of the ordinary.

The Sokolo, however, carried precious cargo: Argentina’s most famous prisoner.

That prisoner's name was Simón Radowitzky, and he could taste freedom for the first time in nine years. Earlier that morning, he had impersonated a Ushuaia prison guard by putting on a uniform he’d cobbled together and made his way to the port. When he got there, he found a fellow anarchist r…