Shin Dong-Hyuk

Shin Dong-Hyuk

Pregnancy is not allowed in the prison camps in general, that is unless, as a reward for hard work the guards arranged a ‘marriage’ for you, you may not live with your partner and may only see them, again, as a reward for hard work. Shin was the result of his parents being granted one of the rare reward for good behaviour. He spent his life there as a slave working hard labour on a diet made exclusively of cabbage and corn meal gruel and a few insects and rats he could catch,

Shin Dong-Hyuk

developing the survival skills – snitching and stealing – that were vital for a daily existence, constantly threatened by beating and starvation. At 13, when he learned that his mother and brother were planning to escape, he did what had become instinctive and betrayed them to the authorities. The pair were tortured before his mother was hanged and his brother shot. Shin, too, was tortured by fire, for weeks in an underground prison within the prison camp, within the prison state as the guard he told of their plan claimed that he had discovered the plan himself.

As he had lead a very controlled life so far with limited ideas, he did not know of a world beyond the camp, and therefore it never occurred to him to escape. That was until he met Park, a newer prisoner who knew of a life beyond the gates. With stories of food, not of ethics or freedom, he persuaded Shin to attempt escape with him. Unfortunately Park beat Shin to the fence and was electrocuted, killing him instantly. Shin then used Parks body to hold apart the wires, which he successfully managed to crawl through.

For months he traveled through North Korea and China and finally to South Korea, where he encountered a world completely strange to him.

He met a journalist who wrote a book on his life, it's called Escaping Camp 14.

Quotes:

'We also learnt from our teachers, who were also our prison guards, that they were humans and we were subhuman, like animals'

“I used to feel intense hatred for the guards. But now I think they are victims too."

“I was stripped, my legs were cuffed and my hands were tied with rope. I was hung by my legs and hands from the ceiling.

"Someone started a charcoal fire and brought it under my back. I felt the heat at my waist and shrieked.

"My torturers pierced me with a steel hook near the groin to stop me writhing. The pain was so bad that I passed out.’’

“I had no concept of human rights. I was only destined to live and die in this camp.

"We were always hungry, and the guards always told us ‘through hunger you will repent’.