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Shin Dong-huyk may be the only person born in a North Korean prison camp to escape the country.
He lived in Camp 14, a sprawling gulag roughly the size of Chicago. It’s one of North Korea’s most severe prison camps, often referred to as a total control zone. Once you enter, you don’t leave.
Prisoners are subjected to extreme abuse and can be beaten, raped, or killed at the whim of the guards. Lying and stealing are essential for survival, but prisoners are encouraged to spy on each other. You can earn additional rations or easier work for snitching when others steal food or slack at work.
Shin lived under these rules from birth. When he overheard his mother and brother planning an escape, he told a guard. He hoped for a reward but also was angry they would put him in danger. Under North Korea’s three generations of punishment rule, a family member’s transgressions can be deadly for you. This is one reason few North Korean athletes or diplomats defect. Many suffer in gulags because an uncle fled the country or fought for the South in the Korean War.
After revealing his mother and brother’s escape plans, Shin was taken to a detention center, and interrogated and tortured. He believes the guard took the credit for himself. Months later, Shin was brought to the front of a large crowd that was common for executions. He thought his time was up, but instead was forced to watch his mother’s and brother’s execution. At the time, he didn’t feel remorse or sadness, only anger.
In this environment, you’d think everyone would be planning an escape — even if they don’t act on it out of fear. But Shin never dreamed of the outside world. He didn’t know there was an outside world. It wasn’t until he was a young adult working in the camp’s textile factory that his perspective was changed by a prisoner named Park. Park was a former member of North Korea’s elite and had traveled outside of the country. Shin loved Park’s stories, especially the tales about food.
Learning about the outside world, and the thought of having a full belly led Shin to consider escape. For the first time he wanted freedom, and hunger drove him to join Park in a daring escape (where Park was killed by an electric fence).
Journalist Blaine Harden spent years interviewing Shin for his 2012 book Escape From Camp 14. It was a hit. Shin met dignitaries and world leaders. He was featured in a 60 minutes segment. His story spawned a U.N. inquiry into human rights abuses in North Korea.
It’s the perfect metaphor for life. Discovering new worlds — new possibilities — is what motivates us to change. This is what Oddballs do.
The only problem is, Shin lied. Three years after the book was published, he confessed to Harden that he had more to tell. Chunks of the story I thought was so odd aren’t true.
Shin’s lies
And it wasn’t Shin’s first deception. When he arrived in South Korea, he lied about his role in his family’s execution (this first version of his story was published in a 2007 memoir). For the 2012 book, Shin admitted to Harden that he was the reason they were executed. But three years after the book was published, Shin came clean again (Harden has an updated forward for the book posted online, and it’s fascinating.).
Shin hadn’t only exposed his mother’s and brother’s escape plans, he signed a document falsely accusing them of murder. He wasn’t just looking for a reward, he was jealous of how his mother favored his brother.
Shin also knew about life outside the camp and had escaped twice before his final attempt. He made it to China during the second escape before being caught and sent back. This is the reason for the worst of his torture, which was far more traumatic than he initially shared. He maintains he was born in Camp 14, but now says he spent most of his life in Camp 18, a less restrictive prison that was easier to escape from.
There are questions about Shin’s life we may never have definitive answers to. But many experts and defectors believe the crux of his story, even if details and timelines have changed and are unverifiable. He has scars from the torture and telltale bowed arms — common for prison camp survivors — from a childhood of hard labor and malnutrition. His experience aligns with other defectors and many details are highly plausible.
Trauma experts weren’t surprised Shin’s story changed. It’s a common occurrence with survivors. He was ashamed of the way torture had broken him. He hated himself for what he had done to his brother and mother. Harden says he often described himself as an animal learning to be human.
The strange truth about guilt or shame is, you feel them most intensely when you’re progressing. Just like Shin, Megan Phelps-Roper was born into a prison she escaped from in her twenties, the Westboro Baptist Church — one of the most hateful groups in America. Do you think she felt more guilt when she was protesting funerals, or when she started questioning what she was taught? Feeling guilt can be a sign you’re escaping prison, and Shin has escaped many physical and mental prisons in his life.
As Shin confessed his lies, Harden noticed, “He seemed relieved to be correcting a story he felt had become a kind of prison.”
Perhaps the oddest thing about Shin’s life isn’t the physical circumstances escaped, but that he didn’t stop progressing from one guilt to the next.
Sources
Escape from Camp 14 by Blaine Harden
New forward for Escape from Camp 14
Camp 14: Total Control Zone - A documentary largely based on the version of Shin’s story that was published in Escape from Camp 14
Good read. Guilt is typically attributed as a negative emotion but without guilt, you can’t begin to change for the better.