North Korean Prison Escapee

Came across this very moving article on a young North Korean escapee in temporary residency in a Seoul human rights center. Unlike most escapees, this guy escaped from a prison labor camp with is quite rare. Most escapees are from labor camps that try operated under the guise of "re-education" and the like. His case was particularly egregious as he was born in the camp and knew nothing of the life outside of it. His family was convicted of helping out the South Koreans during the Korean War and, as a result, three generations of the family were to be punished.

In this camp, the children born are only taught rudimentary things and not even party ideology. The children are made to work in mines or in logging for life and only learn those things necessary to do this. As the children of no other thing, they must assume that this is life.

According to experts, growing up in this environment is a particularly cruel form of punishment and abuse. I don’t think you need to be an expert to realize this. Imagine a life where basic feelings and needs are not experienced. You are not human. I wonder if there are innate feelings that at least make life worth living.

What can this guy be thinking right now, living in Seoul. He escaped after hearing stories by other inmates about this other life. He is quoted as saying that sometimes life in Seoul “is more burdensome than the hardest labor in the camp.” He says that sometimes he wishes to "return to the time before he learned about the greater world, ‘without knowing that we were in a prison camp, without knowing that there was a place called South Korea.'"

-Pat in Seoul