Escape From Camp 14 Analysis

In the book Escape From Camp 14, the child refugee Shin Dong-Hyuk faces unimaginable traumatizing experiences while being held captive in the Camp 14 concentration camp. Before Shin, no one has escaped or lived to share what life was inside a concentration camp in North Korea. Within Camp 14, the imprisoned families and individuals struggle through the severe realities that the North Korea government establishes. These laws and rights formed by the government and given to the citizens affect their human rights by violating their political, economic and also by treating them with unfair punishments. In the lawless land of North Korean, laws are just for decorative and show that the North Korea government knows what they are doing and

North Korea is a country that is ruled by a dictator and has a communist government. A communist government rules all the land and gives the same amount of money and supplies to all the people in the country. “Daily Necessities were obtained from the Public Distribution System (PDS)” (95,Hassig). The PDS shut down in 1995 because foreign aid was cut off expect for Pyongyang, the capital city. In rural areas, a lot of the children were born as “no-count” meaning that when they were born they weren’t counted as part of the existing society and didn’t have supplies given to them. North Korea was once a unified country with South Korea until September 9, 1948 when it became a separate country. From 1910 to 1945 Japan had ruled

1-Shin Dong-Hyuk is the main character of the book Escape from Camp 14, his story is

1945-1950: Kim Il-Sung eliminated members of the Northern Korea Worker's party and other homegrown socialists, as well as leading nationalists and political democrats in order to begin securing full political power. Secret Political, Concentration Camps Established the 1950s: A system of secret political prison camps was set up in order to sustain the large-scale purges of the late 1950s.1950s: Kim had members of rival factions, including those in the Soviet, Yanan, and Domestic factions, either exiled or executed. By the late 1950s, the numbers in the purges increased significantly. Thousands were executed publicly while still more were sent to rural areas, mines, hydropower dams, and prison camps. Kim Il-Sung Eliminates All Detractors 1960. Kim Il-Sung's Final Purges Clear the Way for His Son 1970s. The Mass-Starvation of the 1990s: Widespread famine devastated North Korea, killing over 2.5 million, and perhaps upwards of 3.7 million, North Koreans, more than 10 percent of the population. Twenty thousand people starved to death in South Hwanghae Province, which is about ten percent of the area’s

“I am evolving from being an animal, ' Shin said. 'But it is going very, very slowly. Sometime I try to cry and laugh like other people, just to see if it feels like anything. Yet tears don 't come. Laughter doesn 't come.” Tears, laughter, this all comes easy to most of the world, but it is much more complex than that for North Korean escapee, Shin Dong-Hyuk. After living in a prison camp for his entire life, it is no wonder how tears and laughter would be difficult to manage. Both Shin’s past and the environment of places like Camp 14 play a significant role in who he is today. Understanding the struggle to assimilate after escaping hell on earth and how all of these events have affected Shin and his mental health is crucial. To fully

The North Korean single payer system works when the majority of citizens are healthy, and can pay enough to outweigh the cost of the ill. This however, changed in 1995 during the great famine. A period of severe flooding and droughts caused the agricultural system to buckle. Food production became very limited, and a great famine plagued the nation for several years. A joint report by the European Union, United Nations Children’s Fund, and World Food Program conducted a survey in 1998 and found that “15.6 percent of children in North Korea were acutely malnourished, and 62.3 percent were stunted, a sign of chronic malnutrition.” (Shin, S. S., & Choi, R. Y., 2013). An estimated 600,000 and 2,500,000 people died as a result of the famine in the 1990s. (Owen-Davies, J., 2001) During this time the healthcare system was in complete disarray. Numerous more citizens were ill and

Human being have an emotional side and physical aspect to them. Escaping from the Camp was a challenge but overcoming the emotional phase for Shin has been very tough . “ I escaped Physically,’ he said “ I haven’t escaped psychologically.” As in the selected passage above, Shin states “ I am evolving from being an animal , but it is going very slowly, “ underlines the fact that always Shin thinks about all the hardships that he had to face to get here. One could put it this way, even though he was able to escape the camp with his body he left on key organ back in the camp, his brain. Many of those who have to go through unhumanly hardships such as the genocide, slavery ,labor camps , and war will always have some sort of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. It takes lifetimes for one to forget about a certain event and it is never easy to let things go

Kim Jin Myung taught Shin that even in the darkest prison camps of North Korea that there is still hope and inner strength to be found even if it is just sunlight peeking through tiny mouse holes in the walls. Kim Jin Myung, was the family that Shin had never experienced before he treated shin like a brother and a friend the type of friendship Shin had never experienced before. It was a friendship with trust, not like his peers in school who betrayed him in any possible way to survive. Kim Jin Myung was a true friend. Parkers relationship with shi was very similar but two friendships are never alike. Once Shin was moved to the uniform factory and he met Parker he finally got a small glimpse of the outside world and he wanted to know more. The similarity between Shins relationship with Kim Jin Myung and Park was trust. But this time Shin was the one who was trusted he, for the first time in his life didn’t snitch. This was huge fro Shin he could have been promoted, had more days off, and he could have any of the seamstresses that he pleased. But none of this changed his mind he was fixated to know about this unknown world he wouldn’t ever be the same, he was a

The book Escape from Camp 14, by Blaine Harden, follows the early life of Shin Dong-hyuk, the main character, as he grows up in a North Korean labor camp, Camp 14. The Kim dynasty was in control of North Korea during Shin’s time in the labor camp, and remains in control today. The Kim family runs a communist government and kept control by creating labor camps for those who attempted to fight the government system. The novel goes into detail about Shin’s childhood, his young adulthood, his escape and how he had to adapt after escaping. Blaine Harden convincingly argues that North Korean government is extremely hazardous to its inhabitants. The book highlights the dangers that people face, having to live in the labor camps and the perils of

Born inside the camp, Shin was bred to betray everyone he knew (including his own flesh and blood) and follow the camp’s ten strict rules. He had absolutely no interest in escape until he met another inmate, Park Yong Chul, who told him about the existence of food, comfort, and happiness, all on the outside world. According to Shin, “Park made those thoughts [of

Korean soldiers took Mr. Shin to an underground prison and tortured him to make sure he was telling

Shin Dong-hyuk is the only known escapee born in the brutal North Korean political prison camps. But did Shin find freedom, or did he take his prison with him? In the Escape from Camp 14, Blaine Harden retells the excruciating physical and emotional abuse endured by Shin in the camp where he was born. Yet, to Shin, the brutal beatings at the hand’s of his mother, the camp guards and teachers, and even the other children with whom he was raised was nothing extraordinary. Scrounging on the dining room floor or in the refuse piles for an extra shred of cabbage or kernel of corn, or sneaking off to roast rats or grasshoppers to stave off starvation was simply a way of life. Shin had spent “23 years in an open-air cage run by men who hanged his mother, shot his brother, crippled his father, murdered pregnant women, beat children to death, taught him to betray his family, and tortured him over a fire (123).” Shin survived by doing exactly what he was told to do, when he was told to do it. He had no family. He had no friends. Upon successfully Escaping Camp 14, Shin “felt wonderfully free--and, as

To put it bluntly, writing an entire non-fiction novel about North Korea is no simple task, especially since the country has been secluded from the world since it was founded in 1948. However, Blaine Harden managed to do a more than excellent job with his book, Escape from Camp 14: One Man’s Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West, about Shin Dong-hyuk, the only person who has ever managed to escape the enigmatic North Korean labor camps. The camps have been compared to Hitler’s World War II concentration camps, and they were created by the first dictator of North Korea, Kim Il Sung, in order to punish “enemies” of the country, their kids, and even their grandkids. The Korean peninsula separated in 1945, when the country

Famine is the one of the biggest problems in the world. More than 800 million people are suffering from hunger. The people of North Korea suffer from hunger on the level of the notorious Somalia, Sudan, and Ethiopia famines. They just suffer in silence behind the world media. There are several facts about the North Korea famine. One of the main factors for the North Korea famine is political problems: The North Korean government ignores s people’s everyday lives and only does things for preparing war. Moreover, the North Korean government, North Korea dose not like allow relief agencies to personally deliver the grain

Hyeonseo Lee gave a presentation on TED Talk entitled, “My Escape from North Korea”, summarizing about her life in North Korea. She was born and raised there and sing patriotic songs. All the history books told her that North Korea was the best country in the world. As she got older, a famine struck North Korea in the mid-1990’s. Although, she never experienced starvation, she witnessed the events first hand. This was the pushing point for Hyeonseo, who decided to leave North Korea. Due to China and North Korea’s stringent border policies and the Chinese government immigration policy, the life of a North Korean refugee is challenging and extremely risky. They risk being deported back to the very country that they escaped from. There are reports and stories about the violation of human rights and labor camps in North Korea. She would live in China for ten years before moving to South Korea. Hyeonseo was forced to help her family escape from North Korea. The regime caught Hyeonseo for sending money to her family. Lee’s family to be relocated by the order of the North Korean government. She needed to smuggle them through China to a South Korean embassy in Laos. Unfortunately, Hyeonseo Lee’s story won’t be the last we hear about the abysmal conditions in North Korea. There are, potentially millions more, stories detailing the humanitarian disaster in the country and we must take steps to prepare for the eventual collapse of the country.