Born in the Gulag: Why a North Korean Boy Sent His Own Mother to Her Death

The Atlantic ^ | 03/28/12 | Blaine Harden

[TigerLikesRooster]

Born in the Gulag: Why a North Korean Boy Sent His Own Mother to Her Death

By Blaine Harden

Mar 28 2012, 7:01 AM ET84

Life inside North Korea's Camp 14 so twisted 13-year-old Shin In Geun that he betrayed his mother and only brother.

Nine years after watching his mother's hanging, Shin In Geun squirmed through the electric fence that surrounds Camp 14 and ran off through the snow into the North Korean wilderness. It was January 2, 2005. Before then, no one born in a North Korean political prison camp had ever escaped. As far as can be determined, Shin is still the only one to do it.

He was 23 years old and knew no one outside the fence.

Within a month, he had walked into China. Within two years, he was living in South Korea. Four years later, he was living in Southern California.

Stunted by malnutrition, he is short and slight -- five feet six inches, about 120 pounds. His arms are bowed from childhood labor. His lower back and buttocks are scarred with burns from the torturer's fire. The skin over his pubis bears a puncture scar from the hook used to hold him in place over the fire. His ankles are scarred by shackles, from which he was hung upside down in solitary confinement. His right middle finger is cut off at the first knuckle, a guard's punishment for dropping a sewing machine in a camp garment factory. His shins, from ankle to knee on both legs, are mutilated and scarred by burns from the electrified barbed-wire fence that failed to keep him inside Camp 14.

[dead]

Brutal article. Just brutal.

[SevenofNine]

EEEW that gross that like Stockholm syndome RIGHT

[DuncanWaring]

Remember that was 25 million when the population of the country was around 200 million.

Adjusted for today’s population of around 300 million, that’s closer to 40 million of us to be sent to the ovens.

[sport]

There will be a hell of a lot killed without a doubt. A big portion of them will be obama’s enablers and idiots and will not have the faintest idea that it was their actions that got them there. Myself? If I am still living I will probably be either in my back yard or front yard shot full of holes by the police who come to put me on the train or bus to take me to the camp.

[Maverick68]

b

[goat granny]

The left would have done it years ago if they thought they could get away with it......

[DuncanWaring]

They haven’t given up on the idea.

[oldfart]

bttt

[TigerLikesRooster]

Somebody has to make a movie about this, along the line of “Killing Field” or “Schindler’s List.” You can make a masterpiece out of this brutal reality, a movie which can transcend time.

[darrellmaurina]

29 posted on Fri Mar 30 2012 20:41:15 GMT-0500 (Central Daylight Time) by TigerLikesRooster: “Somebody has to make a movie about this, along the line of “Killing Field” or “Schindler’s List.” You can make a masterpiece out of this brutal reality, a movie which can transcend time.”

Agreed. North Korea is so bad that it defies imagination, and because it is so bad, too many people believe the reports about the country must be grossly exaggerated.

On a related matter, one benefit of things like this showing up in the Atlantic is it reminds American liberals who value human rights and similar concepts that what they would call “Stalinism” is evil and must be opposed not only by conservatives but also by liberals. Liberalism is wrong, but that doesn't mean they want to put everyone into a Stalinist death camp, and large numbers of liberals truly do believe in what they say about human freedom.