By Liz Soares
I wasn’t totally ignorant of the recent history of North Korea before I started reading Escape from Camp 14: One Man’s Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West.
I knew that the country had a totalitarian government, led by the latest member of the Kim dynasty, Kim Jong-un. And that the country experienced a famine in the 1990s. Of course, I was well aware that North Korea poses a nuclear threat to the rest of the world - even though its recent missile launch fizzled.
What I didn’t know, until I read this fascinating and heartbreaking book, was that North Korea’s twisted government runs labor camps that confine, enslave and torture political opponents of the Kim regime - and their families. Even worse, children are born in these camps. They grow up in an inhumane, closed and paranoid environment.
Few escape from these prisons, which are well-guarded, surrounded by electric fences and set in the bleak landscape of the North Korean hinterlands. But the story of Shin Dong-hyuk is made even more compelling by the fact that he was a camp native. It’s a true testament to the human spirit that a young man who grew up without any comprehension of love, friendship, honor or the realities of the outside world, was able to find the resources to evade the forces of one of the world’s most brutal regimes.
In fact, he is believed to be the only person born in the camps to do so.
Reporter Blaine Harden has crafted a fine account of Shin’s journey from a living hell to the paradise of southern California.
Shin’s father was jailed because of the alleged transgressions of his brother. His marriage to Shin’s mother was arranged in prison. Life, for Shin, was a battle for survival. He saw his mother as competition for food.
For years, Shin was not even aware there was an outside world worth escaping to. It’s not until he meets an older, well-traveled prisoner that he begins to dream of freedom - and grilled meat.
Escape From Camp 14 is not an easy book to read. It is a visit to a place where people are commodities, not just to the guards, but to each other. They sleep on floors and eat a diet of cabbage soup. When prisoners die on a work detail, their counterparts simply pick up the bodies and toss them to the side.
Shin’s escape does not mean an immediate end to his hardships. He wanders through North Korea, living by his wits, until he finally reaches the border with China. Then he faces another slow journey to South Korea, where he finally gets the help he needs to learn to live in the world outside Camp 14.
Not surprisingly, Shin has to deal with feelings of guilt and a growing awareness that the years of living in an emotional vacuum may be as hard to overcome as the electrified fence.
He has had to acknowledge the role he played in the execution of his mother and brother, who tried to escape well before him.
As Harden points out, the enslaved laborers of North Korea have no famous face to represent them, to appeal for help for them. It’s a huge human rights issue that few know about, or care about. Even South Koreans, complacently living well-fed lives amid a booming economy, are tired of escapees’ tales. As Harden titles one chapter, “South Koreans Are Not So Interested.”
The book left me wondering if these camps would have been closed years ago if North Korea had oil reserves beneath its barren soil. Did the Korean War accomplish all that it should have if these hellholes still exist? What can be done to stop the Kim regime? Shin’s story makes it clear that we urgently need to find answers to those questions.
