Amid the daily drumbeat of global news, few subjects capture attention quite like North Korea’s notorious labor camps. Tales of incredible hardship and unimaginable cruelty emerge with haunting regularity, painting a startling picture of life under the regime of Kim Jong Un.
Hyuk Kim is one such voice. An orphan arrested at age 16 while attempting to escape to China, Kim was subjected to a grueling existence in North Korea's Jungeori Labor Camp. He reflects on his ordeal with a brutal candor: "There was no sense of being human," Kim said. "You were like an animal. You do the hard labor you were ordered to do, that's it. No thinking. No free will. Just fear."
Kim’s waking hours were dominated by thoughts of food. "Because you were so hungry, you thought about food and how to get more of it all the time," he recalled. Prisoners resorted to capturing rats, eating them raw to avoid detection by guards. Their attempts to cook were met with severe punishment.
Meals at Jungeori were sparse: a handful of cornmeal and soya beans for breakfast, a repeat at lunch, and dinner served with the humbling task of memorizing camp rules. Nightfall offered no respite, and prisoners huddled tightly together, crammed fifty to a room.
Contraband cigarettes became the currency of survival, with prisoners scavenging guards' discarded butts to trade. This hazardous bartering often led to brutal beatings if discovered.
An unthinkable reality for many, this existence was the daily norm for Jungeori detainees. "If you thought about when you'd leave the camp each day, you were usually among the first to die," Kim noted. His reflection underscores a chilling truth: survival hinged on complete submission and mental adaptation to camp life.
Kim’s insights, however harrowing, are merely threads in the broader fabric of North Korea's penal system. Kenneth Bae, an American missionary also imprisoned by North Korea, provides another poignant perspective. Bae’s misfortune began in December 2012, when North Korea charged him with hostile acts for possessing Christian materials. His sentence: 15 years of hard labor.
Bae chronicled his experiences in his memoir, “Not Forgotten: The True Story of My Imprisonment in North Korea,” detailing arduous workdays from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., carrying rocks and shoveling coal. Over his 735 days in captivity, Bae lost 60 pounds, his health spiraling due to the demanding routine and insufficient medical care.
He often confronted psychological torment. Interrogators preyed on his isolation, telling him, "No one remembers you." Yet, he found moments of solace in brief connections with the outside world, through emails and a Bible he was allowed to keep.
For some, like Otto Warmbier, imprisonment in North Korea ended tragically. The University of Virginia student was detained in early 2016, later falling into a coma with mysterious causes, raising numerous questions about his treatment.
Amnesty International and other human rights organizations continue to shed light on these treacherous conditions. Amnesty’s satellite imagery indicates vast prison networks, with camps spanning areas three times the size of Washington, D.C. Aerial photographs reveal stark landscapes where captivity means forced labor in perilous environments, and where food scarcity prevails.
The regime’s strategy extends beyond just the prisoners; it targets their families too, punishing three generations in a bid to eliminate any perceived threat. The International Bar Association reports that Kim Jong Un’s regime commits ten out of eleven internationally recognized war crimes, including murder, enslavement, torture, and sexual violence.
Even with extensive evidence, North Korea denies the allegations, maintaining that these camps are standard prisons. Official statements from Pyongyang persistently reject accusations, deeming them as fabrications meant to fuel hostilities against the DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea).
Yet, the testimonies from former prisoners and guards paint an irrefutable picture of relentless brutality. Thomas Buergenthal, an Auschwitz survivor and former judge on the International Court of Justice, equates the horrors of North Korea's camps to those of the Nazi concentration camps. "The conditions in the [North] Korean prison camps are as terrible, or even worse," he concluded.
The world remains at a standstill, grappling with how to hold North Korea accountable. While diplomatic tensions mount, human rights advocates stress the importance of continued scrutiny.
Kim, who now works as a lecturer in South Korea, is among the few defectors publicly recounting his experiences, raising awareness of a regime that seeks to silence dissent through fear and oppression. His testimony and those like Bae’s highlight the enduring strength of the human spirit, enduring despite relentless efforts to crush it.
As efforts to open North Korea's prisons to international scrutiny stall, stories of survival shine a light on the need for global intervention. As Kim poignantly reminds, survival often demanded, "No thinking. Just fear." Such chilling words call to mind the need for empathetic action before countless more lives are lost to the shadows of secrecy and cruelty.
