I will add this to the recommended reading post but this book should have it's own dedicated post since it's such a profound story.
The title of the book comes from when Soon Ok was leaving Kaechon concentration camp.
She decided then that the story had to be told and so she eventually defected to South Korea with her son and wrote the book.
She was a dedicated communist and relatively high up in the food chain with her family having good songbun.
One day though while working at the office, she was basically kidnapped by a planned operation and taken to an interrogation office where she spent months being tortured to confess a false crime.
After being told by an interrogation officer that her husband and son would not be affected if she signed, she did and so began her six-year ordeal in the hell camp.
It is not a story that will cheer you up but you will get to see the true evil ugly side of the North Korean regime.
These camps all over the country are not re-education camps. they are forced labor camps where life is cheap. the prisoners are worked to death under woeful conditions or if they somehow manage to survive their sentence, are released back into society but are not really able to function either through the physical abuse they suffered or from psychological disorders caused by the gross treatment or both.
The individual is destroyed and so is the family through association with a so-called criminal.
Soon Ok Lee would be 70 years old now and i'm not sure if she's still alive but her book should be read by anyone who is concerned about human rights abuses.
Here is a good summary from one blogger who read the book
https://sharonhenning.blogspot.com/2009/11/eyes-of-tailless-animals.html
And here is her testimony at the national press club in Washington, D.C via C-Span cable. her testimony starts at the 21-minute mark.
www.c-span.org/video/?122838-1/north-korean-political-prisoners-experiences
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0882643355/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o08_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
The title of the book comes from when Soon Ok was leaving Kaechon concentration camp.
There were about 140 Christian prisoners who were never allowed to look up since Kim Il Sung ordered that he didn't want Christians to look up at their god.
At the time she was walking out of the gates, she noticed that all Christian prisoners looked up for the first time and met her eyes.She decided then that the story had to be told and so she eventually defected to South Korea with her son and wrote the book.
She was a dedicated communist and relatively high up in the food chain with her family having good songbun.
One day though while working at the office, she was basically kidnapped by a planned operation and taken to an interrogation office where she spent months being tortured to confess a false crime.
After being told by an interrogation officer that her husband and son would not be affected if she signed, she did and so began her six-year ordeal in the hell camp.
It is not a story that will cheer you up but you will get to see the true evil ugly side of the North Korean regime.
These camps all over the country are not re-education camps. they are forced labor camps where life is cheap. the prisoners are worked to death under woeful conditions or if they somehow manage to survive their sentence, are released back into society but are not really able to function either through the physical abuse they suffered or from psychological disorders caused by the gross treatment or both.
The individual is destroyed and so is the family through association with a so-called criminal.
Soon Ok Lee would be 70 years old now and i'm not sure if she's still alive but her book should be read by anyone who is concerned about human rights abuses.
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| Soon Ok Lee |
Here is a good summary from one blogger who read the book
https://sharonhenning.blogspot.com/2009/11/eyes-of-tailless-animals.html
And here is her testimony at the national press club in Washington, D.C via C-Span cable. her testimony starts at the 21-minute mark.
www.c-span.org/video/?122838-1/north-korean-political-prisoners-experiences
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