Escape from camp 14

article source: http://theweek.com/article/index/228631/inside-north-koreas-gulag

7 years ago, at the age of 23, Shin In Geun escaped from a North Korean political prison. That statement alone is enough to merit astonishment, as previously no one born in a camp had been known to escape. While the article itself does not provide detail of his escape, it hints at the perseverance of the escape in reciting time limits: a month found him in China, two years found him in South Korea, and 4 years found him in Southern California. More astonishing, however, is the bit of life from inside the camp that Shin In Geun reveals. It is a life that reflects a horrifying lack of basic family ties and mutual respect for human life. Shin grew up as a slave, under the pressure of survival that led to his betrayal of his mother and brother in their plan to escape the camp. Once he relayed this information, however, Shin was tortured for information anyways and eventually witnessed the hanging of his own mother and brother. What Shin wished to relay to the outside world, however, was not the terror of his own personal experience but the level of deasement within the camps, and the truth that the abuse within them came not only from the guards, but between the prisoners themselves.
I found this article in the back of the magazine The Week, which I get at home. I chose the article because of the subtitle:

Twisted by hunger and cruelty, Shin In Geun betrayed his mother, and then watched her hang

 It kind of jumps out at you. In any case, though, the article was well written and emphasized the fact that the level of deprivation inside these camps is illustrated in the way that it has turned its inhabitants against each other, and forced them into a less-than-human state of being and mentality. I found the story itself to be very interesting, if only in light of the fact that there is so little overall information about North Korea.