{"id":2732,"date":"2012-02-18T17:22:03","date_gmt":"2012-02-18T17:22:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/?p=2732"},"modified":"2012-02-28T03:04:22","modified_gmt":"2012-02-28T03:04:22","slug":"ten-years-in-the-north-korean-gulag","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/ten-years-in-the-north-korean-gulag\/","title":{"rendered":"Ten Years in the North Korean Gulag"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>By now all Christian Voice members<\/a> should have received the January edition of our monthly newsletter. In it we have given an update of the horrendous situation in North Korea, where Christians are treated more severely than in any other nation on earth.<\/p>\n

Building on this month’s report, our March newsletter will feature a review of Kang Chol-Hwan\u2019s chilling expos\u00e9 of the concentration camp system, The Aquariums of Pyongyan: Ten Years in the North Korean Gulag<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Kang Chol-Hwan came from one of the many Korean families who had come there from Japan in the mid 20th century. Throughout the 1950s there was a large contingent of Koreans living in Japan who had fled to the island to escape the horrors of the Korean war. These refugees had a good life in Japan. Many of them held lucrative jobs, and they were surrounded by friends and family who had also immigrated to the island. Yet many of these Koreans decided to return home to start a life for themselves in the communist North.<\/p>\n

These Korean refugees in Japan had been listening with eagerness to news of the revolutionary struggle occurring back in the north of their homeland. They heard how the \u201cpeople\u2019s struggle\u201d had culminated in the establishment of The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea under the faithful leadership of Kim Il-sung (1912\u20131994).<\/p>\n

Reports continued to flood into Japan through the communist organizations about what a paradise North Korea was becoming. While there were some dissenting voices, warning that North Korea was far from being a communist utopia, the pro-North Korean political groups in Japan dismissed these warnings as anti-communist propaganda.<\/p>\n

Thus it was that throughout the late 50s, thousands of Korean families living in Japan decided to immigrate back to their homeland. Leaving behind friends, family and wealth, tens of thousands took the journey, almost ecstatic to be part of Kim Il-sung\u2019s “Paradise on Earth.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those who were left behind in Japan waited anxiously to receive news from their family and friends. Often they were met with only silence, or else letters with an unclear meaning. Assuming this must mean things were fine, many other Koreans sailed over.<\/p>\n

What the returning Koreans stepped ashore, what they found was not a communist paradise but a prison. Some new arrivals who were loyal to communism were arrested immediately upon arrival, never knowing why and spending the little that remained of their lives in utter confusion and despair. Most were allowed to integrate into North Korean society (little better than a prison itself), but only after the wealth they had brought over from Japan had been systematically confiscated.<\/p>\n

Kang Chol-Hwan, author of The Aquariums of Pyongyang<\/em>, was born into a family whose grandparents were among these immigrants. Kang\u2019s his grandparents\u2019 stepped ashore on North Korean soil, one of his uncles recalled seeing several Koreans who had immigrated a few weeks earlier come up to some of the immigrants and say, \u201cWhat happened? We sent our friends and family letters warning people not to come! Why didn\u2019t your family listen?\u201d The reality is that their letters had never been allowed to reach Japan.<\/p>\n

After listening to this ominous exchange, Kang\u2019s uncle looked around him. \u201cIt was like the city was dead \u2013 the strangest atmosphere\u201d he recalled. \u201cThe people all looked so shabby and aimless in their wandering. There was a feeling of deep sadness in the air, and no movement betrayed the slightest hint of spontaneity.\u201d<\/p>\n

By the time Kang\u2019s grandparents realized their mistake, it was too late. They would never be allowed to go back to Japan.<\/p>\n

Kang\u2019s parents and grandparents actually had it good. They were allowed to live in the capital city, Pyongyang, and because they had brought over so much wealth, they were favoured by the party leaders. Kang\u2019s grandfather was even able to keep a Volvo he had brought over from Japan, in which he took his children and grandchildren on drives in the country. (Every outing had to be authorized, usually requiring a hansom bribe to a party bureaucrat).<\/p>\n

Moreover, because his grandfather worked in food distribution, there was always plenty to eat. Since Kang had never experienced his family\u2019s other life in Japan (his father married in 1967, after the family had already immigrated) he had nothing with which to compare and led a genuinely happy childhood, or as happy as one can realistically expect to be in that totalitarian state.<\/p>\n

The trouble began in 1977 when Kang was nine and his grandfather simply disappeared. No one was ever told what he had done, but it was supposed that someone must have reported him for being disloyal. In North Korea there are never any trials, and the mere suspicion that a person is disloyal to the communist party can be enough to send him and his entire family to a labour camp.<\/p>\n

Not long after this, agents showed up at the family\u2019s house and abruptly informed the household that they were being transferred. No explanations were given, but the hardest part about it for Kang was that his mother was not allowed to accompany them. Since she was descended from an \u2018heroic family\u2019 she was not allowed to join her children even though she begged to be able to.<\/p>\n

Nine-year old Kang, along with his seven-year old sister Mi-ho, his father, grandmother, uncle and aunt, were taken to a camp in Yodok, South-Hamkyung Province. For the next ten years Kang remained in the camp, without ever being told what his grandfather had allegedly done to warrant this treatment.<\/p>\n

Kang\u2019s account of his time in the North Korean Gulag gives us unique insight into the camp system and the totalitarian regime that sustains it. We also learn about his exciting escape to China and finally to South Korea, where he was converted to Christianity and became one of the chief advocates for human rights in North Korea.<\/p>\n

Next month\u2019s Christian Voice newsletter will contain a review of the book, including a detailed description of the horrors witnessed by Kang in the camp – conditions which are still a reality for the thousands of Christians imprisoned in these camps.<\/p>\n

In the following video, Kang Chol-Hwan uses satellite imagery to show the horrors of the concentration camp system.<\/p>\n